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THE GOLD ROCK OF THE 
CHIPPEWA 


“INDIAN” STORIES 

WITH HISTORICAL BASES 

By D. LANGE 
12mo Cloth Illustrated 
ON THE TRAIL OF THE SIOUX 

THE SILVER ISLAND OF THE 
CHIPPEWA 

LOST IN THE FUR COUNTRY 
IN THE GREAT WILD NORTH 
THE LURE OF THE BLACK HILLS 
THE LURE OF THE MISSISSIPPI 
THE SILVER CACHE OF THE PAWNEE 
THE SHAWNEE’S WARNING 
THE THREAT OF SITTING BULL 
THE RAID OF THE OTTAWA 
THE MOHAWK RANGER 
THE IROQUOIS SCOUT 
THE SIOUX RUNNER 
THE GOLD ROCK OF THE CHIPPEWA 

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON 






One of the women handed to each a birch-bark dish 

Page 35. 






THE GOLD ROCK 
OF THE CHIPPEWA 


of LANGE 


ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK 



: MERRILL 


BOSTON 

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. 














Copyright, 1925, 
By D. Lange 


The Gold Rock of the Chippewa 


Printed in U. S. A. 


laorWOOD PlC63 
BERWICK & SMITH CO. 
Norwood, Mass. 


©ClA8e95S8 

nCT17’25 


I 




FOREWORD 


Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his 
essays on the art of writing, says in substance 
that one of the methods of telling a story is 
to choose a background and then build in 
harmony with the landscape selected. 

In The Gold Rock of the Chippewa the 
writer has followed this method. The story 
opens in 1775, a dozen years after the Great 
Lakes region had been ceded by France to 
England. But it does not attempt to tell 
of the great war in which Wolfe and Mont¬ 
calm gave their lives for their countries. It 
might be called “ The Robinson Crusoe of 
Lake Superior,” as the events of the whole 
story take place among the rocky wooded 
hills, on the cold streams, the clear lakes, the 
wild islands, and on the deep blue waters of 
“ Gitche Gurnee,” the largest and most beau¬ 
tiful of the great inland seas of North 
America. 

D. Lange. 

St, Paul, Minnesota, 

August, 1925, 


5 


CONTENTS 


I. 

The Council - 



PAGE 

11 

II. 

Ganawa Speaks 

- 

- 

17 

III. 

Gitohe Gumee - 

- 

- 

23 

lY. 

Yague News - 

- 

- 

34 

Y. 

The White Boy Leaens 

- 

- 

45 

YI. 

A Spooky Camp 

- 

- 

54 

YII. 

A Wolf - - - 

mm 

- 

61 

YIII. 

Tawny - - - 

- 

- 

68 

IX. 

The Peoving op Tawny 

- 

- 

74 

X. 

The Kiddle 

- 

- 

81 

XI. 

Mysteey and Dangee 


- 

89 

XII. 

Beginning the Seaech 

- 

- 

97 

XIII. 

At the Big Pool 

- 

- 

105 

XIY. 

A Puzzle - - - 

- 

- 

113 

XY. 

The Smoke-House - 

- 

- 

121 

XYI. 

A Double Suepeise - 

- 

- 

129 

XYII. 

Into the Unknown - 

- 

- 

137 

XYIII. 

Eeal Teouble - 

- 

- 

144 

XIX. 

On Wild Lakes 

- 

- 

151 

XX. 

Faethest Noeth 

- 

- 

159 

XXI. 

Wild Feuit 

- 

- 

166 


7 


8 


CONTENTS 


XXII. 

On a Xew Taok - 

- 

- 

173 

XXIII. 

The Beaver Hunt 

- 

- 

179 

XXIY. 

Much Work and a Clue 

- 

186 

XXY. 

A Mystery 

- 

- 

193 

XXYI. 

Stalking a Moose - 

- 

- 

202 

XXYII. 

The Storm Camp - 

- 

- 

211 

XXYIIL 

Fighting a Wolf - 

- 

- 

218 

XXIX. 

A Discovery - 


- 

228 

XXX. 

Ganawa Is Frightened 

- 

238 

XXXI. 

Sailing the Pirate 

- 

- 

247 

XXXII. 

Caribou Island - 

- 

- 

254 

XXXIII. 

The Last Search - 

- 

- 

260 

XXXIY. 

A Bold Yenture - 


. 

268 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

One of the women handed to each a birch- 

bark dish (Page 35) . . Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

On a big bare rock stood a wolf looking at 

him.66 

He barely clung to the rook with hands and 

feet.132 

A big black bear was coming straight for 

him.172 

There he stood, a fine young bull moose, 

feeding on some willows . . . 210 

He was some fearsome wild giant . . 262 


9 



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THE GOLD ROCK 
OF THE CHIPPEWA 


CHAPTER I 

THE COUNCIL 

There was great excitement in the Chip¬ 
pewa camp on a small lake near the Sault 
Sainte Marie early in June, 1775. A coun¬ 
cil was going to be held to decide the fate of 
two Americans who had ventured into that 
part of the country as unwelcome visitors. 

The prevailing opinion in the camp was 

that they should not be allowed to stay or 

to continue their journey, but should go 

back to their own country. However, 

there were a few warriors who demanded a 

much more radical proceeding against the 

strangers; and the most clamorous amongst 

these was Hamogeesik, who strutted about 

with his face painted black and bragged that 

11 


12 


THE GOLD ROCK 


he was going to take the scalp of the two 
Englishmen, as he called them, because 
twelve years before at the siege of Detroit 
the English had killed his brother. 

In the meantime, the two Americans, 
Bruce Henley, a young man who might be 
twenty-five years old, and his brother, Ray 
Henley, a lad of thirteen, kept rather close 
to the tepee of Ganawa, an old warrior who 
ridiculed the claims of Hamogeesik, whom 
he called a coward and “ a much bad In¬ 
dian.” 

About an hour after sunset the beat of 
the tom-tom called the warriors to council. 
There were about twenty-five of them pre¬ 
sided over by a chief who had seen many 
winters and had twice gone on the warpath 
against the Sioux, even then the enemies of 
the Chippewas. 

The council-house was a very simple 
structure. It consisted of poles set in the 
ground, over which had been built a roof 
of boughs; but no white man’s court or jury 
ever assembled with greater dignity and 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


13 


listened with more gravity to the arguments 
of eloquent lawyers or the charges of dig¬ 
nified judges than the unlettered warriors 
in Chief Winnego’s camp near the Sault 
Sainte Marie listened to the speakers. 

Hamogeesik was the first to speak. He 
pleaded that the Englishmen should be 
turned over to him. That he should be al¬ 
lowed to keep them as slaves or to take their 
scalps, because the English had killed his 
brother, a brave Chippewa warrior, in the 
fights at Detroit, when the great war chief 
Pontiac led all the Indians against the Eng¬ 
lish. 

When Hamogeesik had finished and sat 
down on his deerskin robe, Ganawa arose. 
He was a man over six feet tall. His hair 
was beginning to turn gray, but his shoul¬ 
ders did not stoop, and from his eyes flashed 
the anger and fire of a young warrior. 

“ My brother,” he began in a low, deep 
voice, ‘‘ has told you that his brother was 
killed by the English at Detroit. In that 
Hamogeesik has told you the truth. But 


14 THE GOLD ROCK 

I ask you now why Hamogeesik’s brother 
went to Detroit. That place, as you all 
know, is many days’ journey from our 
country, and we had no grievance against 
the English. You know that many of 
our wise men and our own chief Winnego 
advised our young men not to join in 
the great war of the Ottawas and their 
chief Pontiac, but to stay at home and 
hunt deer and keep the bears and the coons 
out of the cornfields, which our women were 
beginning to plant. 

“ If Hamogeesik’s brother desired so 
much to fight our enemies, why did he not 
make up a war party against the Sioux? 

“You know, brothers, that the young 
Englishmen are our guests, and live in my 
tepee, and you know what the little Eng¬ 
lishman did only a day after he and his big 
brother came to our camp. You know that 
the little son of my daughter was fishing 
from a canoe and that the canoe drifted 
away with him. There was no other canoe 
on the beach and only our women and some 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


15 


old men were in camp. When my daughter 
cried aloud and believed that her small son 
must drown, the little Englishman took off 
his shoes and plunged into the cold water. 
He showed that he was a better swimmer 
than most of us are. He reached the canoe 
and pushed it ashore, because there was no 
paddle with which to steer. You know 
that, when he reached the shore, his eyes 
closed and his legs would not move any 
more, so the women had to carry him to 
my tent. You know that the water which 
runs out of the great sea Gitche Gurnee is 
so cold that it never gives up its dead. 

“ Here under this deerskin is a present 
for all of you, including Hamogeesik, and 
I ask you that the Englishmen be given to 
me that I may adopt them as my sons. 
They have shown themselves good and brave 
men and true friends of our people. 

‘‘ We do not wish it told at the camp-fires 
of the Chippewas and the Ottawas that the 
warriors of Winnego have turned traitors 
to their friends and have forgotten the sacred 


16 


THE GOLD ROCK 


laws of hospitality that our fathers have 
taught us. I have finished.” 

Contrary to Indian habit and custom the 
case was not held open for another council, 
but it was decided that the two Americans 
should belong to Ganawa, a decision which 
Hamogeesik heard with scowling silence. 

Bruce Henley and Ray had surmised 
what the general drift of the two talks had 
been, but did not know what had been said 
until Ganawa translated the speeches to 
them after the council had broken up. 


CHAPTER II 


GANAWA SPEAKS 

Bruce Henley knew enough of Indian 
etiquette to realize that his friend and In¬ 
dian father would not ask him why he and 
the boy had come to the Indian country, and 
what their plans were for the future. He 
also realized that he must tell Ganawa the 
whole story. 

A few days later, when he and Ray were 
alone in the tepee with Ganawa, Bruce un¬ 
burdened his mind to the Chippewa hunter, 
who was now looked upon by the Indians as 
the father and protector of the two Ameri¬ 
cans who had for some mysterious reasons 
come to the region of the Upper Great 
Lake. 

‘‘ My father,” he began, “ I must now 

tell you why your white sons have come to 

the Chippewa country. We know that the 

17 


18 THE GOLD ROCK 

Chippewas and the Ottawas still love the 
French better than the English. We know 
that many Americans, or Englishmen, as the 
Indians call them, lost their lives at Mackinac 
twelve years ago, but we had a very good 
reason for coming to your country, although 
we knew that we might meet many dangers.” 

“ The English are brave men,” replied 
Ganawa. “ I know that at that time an 
Englishman, whom the whites called Alexan¬ 
der Henry, came to Mackinac and to the 
Sault, and that our brother Wawatam 
adopted him as his son and saved his life. 
He is a very brave man; he has now left my 
people and has gone to trade with the In¬ 
dians who live far to the west of us in the 
buffalo country. But I will now listen to 
my son, so I may learn why he and his little 
brother have come to our country. You 
have not come to trade because you have not 
brought many goods like the brave English¬ 
man.” 

“ I shall truthfully tell my father why we 
have come,” Bruce then resumed. “ It 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 19 

is now about four years ago that my boy¬ 
hood friend, Jack Dutton, went to the 
country of the Big Lake to trade and to 
trap beaver and marten. I wanted to go 
with him, but I had a mother and a sister 
for whom I had to make a home. My 
sister is now married to a good man, and 
my mother lives with her, and I was free to 
leave the colony of Vermont, where my 
white friends are living.” 

“ My son, I hear your words,” Ganawa 
replied, when Bruce was silent. “ If you 
will tell me where your white brother is 
trading and hunting, it may be that I can 
lead you to him, unless he is living in the 
country of our enemies, the Sioux.” 

‘‘ My father,” Bruce took up the story, 
“ I cannot tell you where my friend is liv¬ 
ing. After he had been gone a year, he 
sent me a letter through some traders, say¬ 
ing that next summer he would look for me 
at Mackinac or at the Big Rapids that run 
out of the Big Lake. He said in his letter 
that I should not start till he wrote again. 


20 


THE GOLD ROCK 


but he has never written again. Now, my 
father, I have told you all I know of my 
friend. 

“ I fear,” Bruce continued when Ganawa 
did not speak, “ that some evil thing has 
come to my friend. Perhaps he is sick and 
cannot travel. Perhaps he is held as a cap¬ 
tive among the Indians, or he may have lost 
his life in the woods or in a storm on the 
Big Lake. Perhaps some bad white man 
or Indian has robbed and killed him.” 

“ My son,” Ganawa took up the talk, 
“ you have not told me much. Was your 
brother tall, did he have brown hair, and did 
he walk with a long step? ” 

“ Yes, my father,” Bruce warmly as¬ 
sented, “ such was my friend. A tall man, 
thick brown hair, and he walks with a long 
stride.” 

“ I have seen your brother,” Ganawa de¬ 
clared. “ But you, my sons, should have 
looked for him on the island of Mackinac, 
where many Indians and traders assemble 
every spring. But Mackinac is in the Lake 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 21 

of the Hurons, more than a hundred miles 
by water from our camp.” 

“ My father,” replied Bruce eagerly, “ we 
did visit Mackinac before we came to your 
camp, and he was not there. We talked to 
Indians and white traders, but none of them 
knew him or had seen him either this spring 
or last spring. A trader told us to travel 
to your camp on the lake through which 
runs the cold river between the Big Lake 
and the Lake of the Hurons. We travelled 
to your camp, you have become our father, 
and now we pray you that you tell us when 
and where you saw our brother.” 

‘‘ I saw your brother at the Great Sault 
at the time of the strawberry moon. It was 
twelve or more moons ago. He had with 
him a Canadian, and Hamogeesik and his 
friends tried to rob him of his goods. But 
your brother showed a bold heart. He 
talked to the Indians while he was leaning 
on his gun and in his belt he showed two 
pistols and a hunting-knife. He told them 
if harm came to him and his men and if his 


22 


THE GOLD ROCK 


goods were taken from him, the English 
soldiers at Mackinac would hear of it and 
would punish the guilty. He did not say 
with words that he would fight for his goods, 
but he told them with his eyes that he and 
his man would fight. Hamogeesik is a 
coward and he and his friends slunk away 
like dogs. 

“ During the night the moon stood south 
of the Big Lake and when a gentle wind 
sprang up from the east, your brother put 
all his goods in his boat and he and his man 
sailed away. 

“ When the sun rose and the Indians 
learned that your brother had sailed away, 
they laughed at Hamogeesik and said: 
‘ Hamogeesik, you are a fool, but the white 
trader is wise and brave,’ and they gave him 
a new Indian name, which means the Brave 
White Man. Now I have told you all I 
know of your brother, but to what part or 
to which bay or island of the Big Lake your 
brother and his man sailed away I cannot 
tell you.” 


CHAPTER III 


GITCHE GUMEE 

Bruce Henley realized that the infor¬ 
mation Ganawa had just given him was not 
encouraging; but if he had fully com¬ 
prehended the size of this inland sea, its 
sheer endless shore-line, which it would take 
years to explore and search in detail, he 
would have been utterly discouraged at the 
well-meant information of Ganawa. 

On the usual small map of a school-book. 
Lake Superior looks quite commonplace 
and harmless, but no man can stand on its 
shore without feeling the overwhelming 
power and mystery of this sea in the heart 
of a continent. It is different from every 
other lake on earth. 

The distance a boat must sail from its 

west end at Duluth to the canals which now 

pass the Sault Sainte Marie is greater than 

the distance from St. Paul and Minneapolis 

23 


24 


THE GOLD ROCK 


to Chicago or from Buffalo to New York. 
Its shore-line would stretch more than half¬ 
way across the continent between New York 
and San Francisco. 

On this shore-line there are great bays, 
more than fifty miles in length, such as 
Nipigon Bay and Black Bay, where a canoe 
or small boat might wind about for a whole 
summer in a maze of channels and among 
a world of large and small islands, and bold, 
rocky headlands. 

On the other hand, there are great 
stretches of more than a hundred miles 
where the rocks, a hundred feet high, drop 
sheer into the lake, and where it is difficult 
for even a canoe or a rowboat to find shelter 
in a storm. 

In area. Lake Superior is about equal to 
the combined areas of Massachusetts, Con¬ 
necticut, and Rhode Island. Its greatest 
depth runs close to a thousand feet, and 
depths of three hundred to seven hundred 
feet a few miles from shore are very com¬ 
mon. The water is so clear that in quiet 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


25 


bays one can see a fish at a depth of twenty 
feet, and the waves and the white spray have 
the color and appearance of waves and 
spray of the ocean. 

The water is always ice-cold, except in 
midsummer within a few feet of the sur¬ 
face and in quiet, sheltered bays. But even 
in midsummer, the surface temperature does 
not pass fifty degrees. 

The low temperature of the water is the 
reason that bodies of persons drowned in 
Lake Superior very rarely rise to the sur¬ 
face or drift ashore. The tradition that 
Lake Superior never gives up its dead is as 
old as the navigation of the lake by white 
men, and it existed among the Indians be¬ 
fore the arrival of white men. 

The writer has found no records of In¬ 
dians ever travelling over the middle of the 
lake. Several of the red tribes were bold 
and skillful canoeists, but they were not 
sailors. They did, however, occasionally 
visit the large islands such as Michipicoten 
and Isle Royale, and in fair weather they 


26 


THE GOLD ROCK 


paddled boldly along the shore from the 
Sault to Grand Portage and Duluth, and 
in one recorded case the Chippewa woman, 
Netnoqua, and her adopted white son, John 
Tanner, beat a trader’s sailboat on the voy¬ 
age from the Sault to Grand Portage at 
the mouth of the Pigeon River. On this 
trip Netnoqua’s canoe must have travelled 
nearly five hundred miles. 

Unfortunately a school-book map cannot 
tell the story of the Big Lake, but a look 
at the fine large map of Lake Superior 
published by the United States Lake Sur¬ 
vey suggests at a glance the spell of the 
Big Lake, of the clear cold water, of calm 
sunny summer days, of thick gray fogs, and 
of terrible autumn and winter storms. 

Had Bruce and Ray Henley known all 
these things, their hearts might have failed 
them and they might never have ventured 
on the waves of Lake Superior and into the 
wild forests which, at that time, surrounded 
the whole of the vast inland sea. 

A few days after Bruce and Ganawa had 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


27 


had their talk, the Chippewa suggested 
that they might travel up the Big Lake a 
little way. 

“ My sons,” he told his white friends, “ we 
shall learn nothing more of your brother and 
we shall never find him, if we stay in this 
camp and fish in the lake and hunt deer in 
the forest. I have friends who generally 
make their summer camp on Batchawana 
Bay. It may be that they can tell us more 
of your white brother. They may have seen 
French traders from the Grand Portage or 
even from a very distant place, which the 
French call Fond du Lac, which lies many 
leagues toward the setting sun and means 
‘ the End of the Lake.’ 

“ You must have noticed, my sons,” he 
continued after a pause, “ that Hamogeesik 
and his friends have left our camp. I do 
not know where they have gone. You 
should not be afraid of them, although I 
believe that they are planning some evil, be¬ 
cause their tongues are forked and their 
hearts are black.” 


28 


THE GOLD ROCK 


A few days later, Ganawa and his two 
white sons paddled a large birch-bark canoe 
up-stream. When the water became too 
swift, Ganawa steered the light craft to a 
safe landing-place and stepped out into the 
shallow water. 

“ My sons,” he said, “ take our axes, our 
blankets, and other things and follow me.” 
Then he lifted the canoe on his shoulders and 
walked away with it on a plain portage 
trail. After he had walked about a mile he 
put the canoe in the water again. 

“ My little son,” he said to Ray Hen¬ 
ley, “ you must now learn to travel in an 
Indian canoe. Here is a small paddle which 
I have made for you of cedar wood. It is 
very light and will not tire your arms.” 

Then Bruce knelt on a piece of canvas 
in the bow of the boat. Ray took his place 
in the middle, while Ganawa knelt in the 
stern, which is always the place of the steers¬ 
man. 

“ My sons,” spoke Ganawa, “ I shall 
now steer you over the water of the Big 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


29 


Lake to the beautiful and quiet Bay of 
Batchawana. You, my little son, must not 
be frightened if a big wave lifts up our 
canoe, and you must not put your hands on 
the sides of the canoe. When your arms are 
tired you may rest, but you must sit very 
still, for you know that the water of Gitche 
Gurnee is very cold.” 

The day was already well advanced when 
the three travellers started north on the open 
lake. The sky was clear and there was no 
wind, but a haze hung on the horizon and 
made the western shore invisible as Ganawa 
skirted along the east shore. A broad swell 
from the north added to the impression that 
the canoe was headed for the open sea. 

“ Bruce, I am afraid,” Ray whispered. 
‘‘ This lake is so much bigger than Lake 
George and Lake Champlain in Vermont. 
It looks like the ocean. I—I am afraid we 
shall all drown.” 

‘‘ My son, you need have no fear,” 
Ganawa assured the young lad. ‘‘ The lake 
is not very big here. If there were no haze 


30 


THE GOLD ROCK 


in the air you could see the blue forest to 
the west. I can tell from the sky that no 
wind is coming, and we are running so close 
to shore that we could land before the waves 
grow too big, if a wind did spring up.” 

They might have been going about three 
hours, when Ray became more cheerful. “ I 
can see land now,” he remarked, “ ahead of 
us to the left.” 

“ You see an island, my son,” Ganawa told 
him. “ The French call it Isle Parisienne.” 

When the sun stood low beyond this is¬ 
land, Ganawa headed the canoe toward a 
point which is now called Goulais Point. 
“We sleep here to-night,” he said. “ It is 
not good to travel on the Big Lake after 
dark.” 

“ My father,” asked Ray, “ I thought you 
said it was only a little way to that bay 
where we are going? ” 

“ It is only a little way,” Ganawa replied 
calmly. “ After we have slept, we shall 
soon go to Batchawana Bay.” 

Ray asked no more questions, but he 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 81 

wondered what distance Ganawa would call 
a long journey, if he referred to a two-days’ 
trip as “ only a little way.” 

When Ganawa had gone off to gather 
boughs for the night’s camp, Ray could not 
resist expressing his anxiety to his older 
brother. ‘‘ Bruce,” he said, “ this lake and 
the country are so big we shall never find 
anybody. I am not afraid any more to go 
with you and Ganawa on the lake if you 
don’t go in a storm. But you will see we 
shall never find Jack Dutton. How can 
you find anybody here? There are no 
towns and no farms, just water and woods, 
and rocks and big hills and islands and a few 
Indians. Do you think there are wolves and 
bears in these woods? If there are, I am 
going to ask Ganawa to let me sleep in the 
canoe.” 

Just then Ganawa returned with an arm¬ 
ful of boughs, but Ray could not quite 
muster enough courage to ask him about the 
danger from wolves and bears. 

After a supper of venison, roasted on a 


32 


THE GOLD ROCK 


fire of driftwood, Ray soon slipped under 
the blankets on the bed of balsam boughs, 
and long before Ganawa and Bruce stopped 
talking he was fast asleep after the many 
new impressions and the fears and anxieties 
of the day. 

The sun had just risen when Bruce called 
his young bedfellow. “ Come, Ray,” he 
said, gently shaking the lad, “ Ganawa is 
waiting for us. He is afraid the lake will 
get rough toward noon. There are clouds 
in the west.” 

The drowsy lad arose, quickly put on his 
clothes and walked to the canoe with Bruce, 
and by the time Ganawa had pushed off, 
the sharp, cool air of Lake Superior had 
fully waked up the sleepy boy, who was not 
accustomed to start on a journey without 
breakfast. 

However, they had started none too early. 
Before they reached the entrance to the bay, 
the waves began to roll uncomfortably high. 
The travellers, including Ray, plied a paddle 
with short quick strokes, and although the 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


83 


young lad for a while suffered greater fear 
than the day before, he did not say a word, 
but paddled hard, with his eyes fixed on the 
quiet glistening bay ahead. 

The sun indicated the approach of noon 
when they reached the north end of the bay, 
where they stopped at a small Indian camp 
near the mouth of the Batchawana River. 

The thing that interested Ray most about 
this camp was a kettle of meat hanging over 
the fire in front of one of the tepees, for by 
this time the lad was ravenously hungry. 


CHAPTER IV 


VAGUE NEWS 

Ray had learned at Ganawa’s camp that 
the Indians had no set time for meals, but 
ate when they were hungry, provided there 
was something to eat in camp. There was 
no set time for anything. The women, in¬ 
deed, did go in the afternoon to cut and 
bring in the firewood, but as it was now mid¬ 
summer and no fire was needed in the tepees 
at night, they were not very regular in at¬ 
tending to this duty; although they were 
busy at some kind of work all day long. 

The men had no such regular hours for 
anything as a white man must observe for 
his work. Their duty in times of peace was 
to provide the camp with meat, and to secure 
enough fur or dried meat so they could buy 
of the white traders whatever the family 
needed: blankets, knives, needles, steel axes, 

traps, and especially guns and ammunition. 

34 


THE GOLD ROCK 


85 


There were in an Indian camp, just as there 
are in a white man’s town, men and families 
who were thrifty, and those who were shift¬ 
less and always in trouble. 

All trade was carried on by barter, no 
money circulated in the Indian country, but 
a beaver skin was the standard of value. 

Ray was much pleased when one of the 
women handed to each of the three visitors 
a birch-bark dish and a wooden spoon and 
told them to help themselves to meat in a 
large kettle in front of her tepee. 

The ideas of Indians concerning things 
that are clean often differed from those of 
white men. The kettle contained venison 
and two wild ducks all boiling together; and 
the Indian woman had not been very care¬ 
ful about picking the birds. 

“ I can’t eat that mess,” Ray said to 
Bruce when he saw Ganawa help himself to 
a liberal portion. Ganawa smiled at this 
remark of the white boy. “ My little son, 
our friends offer us good meat,” he en¬ 
couraged the white lad. “ Ducks keep their 


36 


THE GOLD ROCK 


feathers very clean. Fill your dish and eat, 
for I know you must be very hungry.” 

Ray was indeed very hungry, and as he 
began to eat he found that the meat was 
good, although it had been boiled without 
salt or other seasoning. 

Ganawa learned from the men in this 
camp that the brave young trader of last 
spring had sailed his wooden boat along the 
eastern shore of the Big Lake, that he had 
reached Michipicoten Bay, which is sheltered 
from all winds except those that come from 
the southwest. They had also heard that he 
had paddled up the Michipicoten River as 
far as the rapids below the big falls. 
Whether he had made a camp at that place 
and remained there during the winter they 
did not know. 

A young man, however, who was known 
by the name of Roving Hunter, told that 
about twelve moons ago he and a companion 
had met a family of Wood-Indians, called 
by the Chippewas Oppimittish Ininiwac. 
These Wood-Indians had told him that two 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


37 


white men had made a camp on the Michi- 
picoten River, nine or ten leagues above the 
big falls. They had also a camp on one 
of the big lakes of that country. He 
thought from the account of the Ininiwacs 
that they meant Lake Anjigami. But he 
could not understand the language of the 
Ininiwacs very well, and they might have 
referred to some other lake, because the 
Michipicoten carries the water of many lakes 
down to Gitche Gurnee. 

He and his companion had paddled up 
the river to visit the white hunters, but when 
they came to a stretch of rapids two miles 
long, his companion became discouraged and 
said it was too much work to visit the camp 
of these white men. Perhaps they would 
not find the camp, even if they carried their 
canoe past the long rapids and the big falls. 
So they turned back and did not see the 
white men. The Ininiwacs also told him 
that there were many beavers on the small 
lakes and streams in the Michipicoten coun¬ 
try. The three white men were trapping 


38 


THE GOLD ROCK 


beaver and marten and otter, and they had 
also traded some beaver skins and marten of 
the Ininiwacs for knives and beads and 
needles, but they had no blankets and guns 
to sell and no fire-water. But Roving 
Hunter, like the other Chippewas, did not 
know if the white men were still in the Michi- 
picoten country. 

When Ganawa told his white sons what 
he had learned, Ray was much discouraged. 
“ I told you,” he said to Bruce when the two 
had gone to catch trout, “ I told you, Bruce, 
we could never find anybody in this country. 
Every time we go anywhere, the country and 
the lake look bigger and wilder to me. We 
might find a big island, if it is not too far 
from shore, but how can you find a camp 
when nobody knows where it is? None of 
the Indians know where Jack Dutton is now. 
And perhaps the stories they have told 
Ganawa are not true; you know not all 
stories you hear among white people are 
true.” 

To one who has never lived in a wild and 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


39 


thinly populated country it would seem 
that Ray’s conclusion was right, but the 
facts are that it is much more difficult to 
disappear in a wild country than it is in a 
big city. There are so few people in a wild 
country that a stranger, coming in or pass¬ 
ing through, is remembered for a long time 
by everybody who has seen him. In the 
same way, both whites and Indians who live 
in these regions know of each other, although 
their camps or homes may be more than a 
hundred miles apart and they may seldom or 
never see each other. 

When Bruce told Ganawa of the fears of 
the young white boy, the old hunter looked 
at the lad with a serious but friendly smile. 

“ My little son,” he told him, “ you must 
not forget that in the country of the Big 
Lake there are not as many people as there 
are in the white man’s country. My friends 
in this camp have told me much, and they 
have not told me lies. To-morrow or next 
day, when the wind has gone down, we shall 
start for the river Michipicoten. If we find 


40 


THE GOLD ROCK 


some of the Ininiwac people there, they may 
be able to tell us where your white brother 
is camping, and it may be that we shall find 
him very soon.” 

The wind went down next day, but 
Ganawa did not say anything of starting 
north. A hunter had come to camp with 
some moose meat and the women had caught 
plenty of fish in their nets; lake trout, 
pickerel, and some big brook trout, bigger 
than Ray had ever seen. These brook trout 
had come into Lake Superior out of the 
stream. Such brook trout are found along 
the shores of Lake Superior to this day. 
They thrive in the cold, clear water along 
the shore, and in places where there is little 
or no fishing they are at times very nu¬ 
merous. White fishermen at the present 
time call them “ coasters.” 

As far as Bruce and Ray could tell, 
Ganawa and his friends did nothing all day 
but eat moose meat and visit. “ Indians 
certainly have a good time,” remarked Ray 
to Bruce. 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


41 


“ Yes,” admitted Bruce, “ playing In¬ 
dian is not so bad in summer, but it must 
be a tough life in winter.” 

At the close of the third day, Ganawa and 
his friends had eaten up most of the moose 
meat and Ganawa told his white sons that 
in the morning they would leave, provided 
the lake was quiet. 

‘‘ Bruce, you had better ask our father,” 
Ray whispered to his friend, “ to take plenty 
of meat along. You know we were all 
starved when we came to this camp, and I 
heard our father say that it is twenty-five 
leagues to the place we are going. Twenty- 
five leagues, that is seventy-five miles, so 
you see it will take us two or three days.” 

The next morning Ganawa started at 
break of day without apparently thinkings of 
eating any breakfast. This was the usual 
way for Indians to travel, and the voyageurs 
of the Hudson Bay Company and the 
Northwest Company adopted the same 
method of travel. 

A very light fog lay over the water of 


42 


THE GOLD ROCK 


Batchawana Bay when the travellers started, 
but it had been dispelled by the time they 
rounded the point which marks the end of 
the bay. Here the open lake lay before 
them in all that splendor of a summer day, 
which one can experience in such perfection 
nowhere else but along the wild rocky shores 
of Lake Superior, when waves and wind 
seem to have gone to sleep for a long time, 
and when no fog hides the sight of green 
hills far and near. 

White gulls sailed in the air on almost 
motionless wings, and from the spruces on 
shore came the clear whistle of the white- 
throat, one of the hardiest little songsters of 
the North, whose cheering voice may often 
be heard through a thick fog, in which one 
cannot see ten yards ahead. 

Ray was glad to see the lake so quiet, 
but the feeling that he was travelling along 
the shore of the ocean came over him again. 
“ My father,” he asked timidly, “ are we 
travelling now where the lake is very big? ” 

“ Yes, my son,” replied Ganawa, “ on our 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


43 


left toward the west the lake is very big, 
sixty leagues or more; but it is still much 
bigger, twice as big toward the northwest, 
toward the large island of Menong and 
Thunder Bay, where the Sleeping Giant lies 
on the rocks.” 

The boy asked no more. He dipped in 
his light paddle in unison with Ganawa and 
Bruce, and his fear left him as he came un¬ 
der the spell of the scene which was at the 
same time beautiful and sublime. Mile after 
mile they glided along in silence. Some 
small islands to the northwest had been left 
behind. Westward the lake stretched out 
endlessly to the horizon, where the water 
seemed to rise to blend and unite with the 
sky. However, the nearness of the shore 
on their right made the lad feel that they 
were safe, although the steep brown rocks 
looked forbidding enough and the forests on 
the high hills appeared almost black, be¬ 
cause the travellers had to look at them 
against the light of the sun. After a 
while, the lad grew dull toward the beauty 


44 


THE GOLD ROCK 


and sublimity of the scene, and his healthy 
physical nature asserted itself. He had 
hoped that Ganawa would stop for breakfast 
at the end of the bay, but the old hunter 
had not even thought of stopping, to judge 
from the way he steered out of the bay. 
The lad was therefore more than glad when 
Ganawa steered toward a point and re¬ 
marked, “ My sons, we land there to eat.’’ 

It seemed to Ray as if it must be almost 
noon, but Ganawa told him that it was still 
early in the morning, that they had made 
about eight leagues and that the place, 
where by this time they had landed, was 
called by English traders Coppermine 
Point. The Indians, he said, had no name 
for it, because there were too many points 
like it all along the shore of the Big Lake. 


CHAPTER V 


THE WHITE BOY LEARNS 

Ganawa seemed now to have plenty of 
time. He and Bruce lifted the canoe out 
of the water so that the lapping of the 
waves would not cause it to chafe on the 
rocks, for a canoe is very easily injured, and 
an Indian birch-bark is even more sensitive 
to rough handling than a white man’s canoe. 

Much to the surprise of Ray, Ganawa 

even built a fire, which he did by striking the 

edge of a piece of flint with a small piece of 

steel and catching the sparks on a piece of 

dry soft punk. This method of making fire 

was an improvement on the bow and fire- 

stick, which the Indians used before they 

came into contact with white traders. Steel, 

flint, and tinder are much more portable than 

the bow, stick, and block of dry wood used 

during the Stone Age of the human race, 

and now revived for an interesting and 

45 


46 


THE GOLD ROCK 


valuable exercise in woodcraft by the Boy 
Scouts. It was also easier for a hunter to 
keep dry a small piece of tinder than to 
carry or make the older fire-making tools, 
especially in rainy weather. 

Ganawa had another surprise in store for 
Ray. He produced a small package of tea 
and a little brown sugar. To have a drink 
of sweet tea was more of a treat to Ray 
than a box of the best candy is to a modern 
boy or girl, and Ray danced and shouted 
with joy when he saw what Ganawa was 
doing. Since Bruce and Ray had been with 
the Indians they had eaten nothing but meat 
and fish. 

Indians were seldom more provident than 
white boys are in camp. The Indians 
around Lake Superior knew of only two 
kinds of vegetable food which they could 
gather and keep in quantities: wild rice and 
blueberries. The supplies of both had been 
exhausted in Winnego’s camp and the new 
crop was not yet ripe. 

There was, however, no scarcity of food in 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


47 


camp. Moose meat, venison, grouse, and 
ducks were all plentiful. With the Indians, 
there could not be a closed season, because 
they lived largely on game; but as a general 
rule, they did not waste any wild meat. If 
for instance it was too difficult to carry the 
meat of a moose to camp, the camp was 
moved to the moose and remained there until 
the moose was eaten up. 

No decent white man or hoy, however, 
should ever hill game in the closed season. 
The Indian days and the frontier days have 
passed, and to obey the game laws is as 
much a duty of a good citizen as to obey 
other laws. Unless that is done there will 
soon be no game left to hunt at any time. 

One may, however, always hunt with a 
camera. Animals and birds shot with a 
camera will keep and he a treasure for a 
lifetime, and hunting with a camera is a 
finer and harder sport than hunting with a 
gun. 

As told before, Bruce and Ray did not 
go hungry, for moose meat or venison, either 


48 


THE GOLD ROCK 


fresh or dried, is very good food, and there 
are no better fresh-water fish in the world 
than the whitefish, lake trout, and brook 
trout caught in Lake Superior, but Ray 
often wished for some flour and hominy. 

Ganawa gave his white sons about an hour 
to eat and rest at Coppermine Point. Then 
he steered the canoe almost straight north 
and he told them that for the night he in¬ 
tended to make camp at the mouth of the 
Agawa River. 

“ That is a long river,” he told his sons, 
“ and it runs through a deep and beautiful 
canyon, where the trout live, those that are 
colored like the rainbow. My little son 
should be able to catch some big ones at the 
mouth of the Agawa,” he added with a 
friendly smile. 

‘‘ How big are they? ” asked Ray. 

“ That big,” answered Ganawa, holding 
his hands about two feet apart, “ and they 
should weigh five or six pounds, and maybe 
more than that.” 

“What big ones!” exclaimed Ray. “I 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


49 


never saw such big ones. I am going after 
them; ’’ and involuntarily he made a jump 
and swung his arms so as to rock the canoe. 

“ My little son,” Ganawa reminded him, 
“ we are not in a white man’s rowboat. You 
know the water of Gitche Gurnee is very 
cold for swimming.” 

“ I forgot, Father, I forgot,” Ray apolo¬ 
gized. “ I’ll sit still. I know a birch-bark 
canoe is very cranky, and I don’t wish to 
swim again in this cold water,” and Ray 
started in to paddle as if he alone had to 
take the canoe to the mouth of the Agawa; 
until Bruce brought him up short, saying: 

“ Ray, what are you trying to do? Please 
keep time with us. You will be tired 
enough by the time we get to camp. It is 
nearly thirty miles to the mouth of the 
' Agawa.” 

There was very little conversation after 
this. Once or twice Ray asked how deep 
the lake was along this coast, to which 
Ganawa could only reply that it was very 
deep, because in those days no survey of the 


/ 


50 


THE GOLD ROCK 


lake had been made. Modern surveys have 
shown that the lake is indeed very deep along 
that shore, in some places dropping to a 
depth of four hundred and even six hundred 
feet close to shore, but there are a few shoals, 
where in still weather one can see the bot¬ 
tom, for they are covered with only seven to 
fifteen feet of water. 

The three kept steadily on their course, 
and about noon an island became visible just 
above the horizon straight ahead. On their 
right, the wooded hills of the shore, rising 
about a thousand feet above the lake, were 
constantly in sight a few miles off; but on 
their left toward the west and the northwest 
there was nothing but the open lake which 
to the eyes of the travellers looked as endless 
as the ocean. 

The day had turned very warm and as 
the sun passed the noon line, the air above 
the gentle glassy swells of the lake became 
filled with a hazy vapor. 

The island began to look larger as the 
travellers approached, and Bruce judged 


51 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 

that it might be a mile, perhaps two miles in 
diameter. 

‘‘ My father,” he asked when he noticed 
that Ganawa was not steering for the chan¬ 
nel between the island and the lake, “ are 
we going to camp on the island? ” 

“ My son,” replied Ganawa, “ do you see 
that the air is no longer clear on the water, 
but only high up in the sky? I am afraid 
we may run into a fog and then we might 
not be able to find the mouth of the Agawa. 
The fogs on this lake are very thick.” 

Ganawa’s fear was realized all too soon. 
In about half an hour the shore disappeared, 
and then even the island, which a little while 
ago had seemed to be very close, straight 
ahead of them, disappeared completely from 
sight. 

For some little time all kept paddling in 
silence, and Ganawa steered against the cold 
breeze that had come with the fog. But 
soon after the breeze had failed Ganawa 
stopped paddling. 

“Wait, my sons,” he spoke, “we must 


52 


THE GOLD ROCK 


make sure that we are going right. It is 
very dangerous to be lost in a fog on the 
Big Lake.” And then he suddenly uttered 
a deep rolling yell: “ Hoah—hoah! ” 

“ Hoah—hoah,” a faint echo came from 
their right. 

“ We were headed for the open lake, my 
sons,” remarked Ganawa. “ Now paddle 
carefully straight ahead to our right. We 
must not miss the island.” 

Within a few minutes Ray gave a yell, 
but no echo returned from his weaker and 
more highlj^-pitched voice. 

Then Bruce tried it and back came the 
voice: “ Oh—hoh! ” but not very strong. 

“ I hear the scream of some gulls,” re¬ 
marked Ganawa. “ I think they are sitting 
on the rocks near shore. We must go slow.” 

Then Ray tried it again and back came 
the echo quickly and clearly: “ Hi-yi, hi-yi! ” 
and a few minutes later a rather low wooded 
island suddenly rose out of the fog as if 
it had just come up from the bottom of the 
lake. 




OF THE CHIPPEWA 


53 


“ Thank God,” Bruce said in a low voice. 
“ I knew we were close to the island, but it 
seemed as if we should never reach it. 
Thank God we found it. It is the best¬ 
looking island I ever saw.” 

In reality the island looked quite forbid¬ 
ding. Bold, jagged rocks seemed to form 
the whole shore, and it took some time be¬ 
fore Ganawa found a safe pebbly landing- 
place. Rather small spruces, balsam firs, 
and birches formed a dense forest and were 
all dripping wet, and there was not a sign 
of any human habitation either white or In¬ 
dian. As far as Bruce and Ray could tell, 
there had never been a human being on the 
island. 

“We camp here, my sons,” Ganawa in¬ 
formed the white lads, “ and we must set up 
our tepee, because the woods and the ground 
are too wet and cold without a tepee and 
a fire. White men call this place Montreal 
Island, and it measures about a league if 
you go north and south, and a league if you 
go east and west.” 


CHAPTER VI 


A SPOOKY CAMP 

Ray had a feeling that they had narrowly 
escaped from the horrible fate of being lost 
in a fog on Lake Superior. He had seen 
fogs in his native province of Vermont, but 
this was his first experience with a fog such 
as he had just seen. That a fog could come 
up so suddenly and could almost change day 
into night was a revelation to the lad. But 
he understood now why Ganawa had been 
so anxiously watching the sky for signs of 
a change in the weather and why he had 
steered for the island instead of for the 
mouth of the Agawa, which was about 
twelve miles farther to the northeast, and 
where Ganawa would have had to hold a true 
course over open water about ten miles wide. 

“ My sons,” remarked Ganawa, “ I was 

afraid we should get lost if we tried to reach 

64 


THE GOLD ROCK 55 

the mainland even if we had used our little 
compass. When a fog comes up, every wise 
man paddles as quickly as possible to the 
nearest land.’’ 

There was something spooky about the 
place where they had landed. They had 
carried their tepee-skin and other things a 
few rods through the dripping forest over 
very rough rocky ground and had laid them 
down in an open grassy spot, where to 
the surprise of both Ray and Bruce, they 
found two sets of tepee-poles already set 
up. But the fog had now become so thick 
that, if Ray walked over to one side of the 
clearing, he could not see the tepee-poles 
at the other side. He walked a few rods 
along a game trail in search of dry punk 
wood, but in the dense timber he had a feel¬ 
ing that the sun had set and that at any 
moment it might grow pitch dark. With a 
feeling of fear he turned back toward camp. 
He was puzzled when he came to a fork 
in the trail, which he had not noticed in 
coming from the camp. He took the fork 


56 


THE GOLD ROCK 


to his right and followed it for a time, which 
seemed to him to be twice as long as he 
had taken going away from the camp. But 
no open place and no tepee-poles came in 
sight; on the contrary the timber grew more 
dense and the trail began to lead up-hill. 
He stopped and called, “ Hoh, Bruce!’’ 
He listened for an answer but none came. 

The blood rushed hot to his face. “ I 
believe I am lost,” he thought. He listened 
a moment and heard the sound of some one 
chopping wood, but the sound came from 
the wrong direction, and Ray called lustily 
for Bruce. 

Come back here, you youngster! ” came 
the reply. “ Can’t you get wet enough 
without slashing around in the brush? ” 

When the badly scared boy returned to 
the camp site, Ganawa was just putting the 
last touches on setting up the tepee. Bruce 
was hard at work cutting wood. He had 
some dry spruce and balsam, but most of it 
was green birch, and under a large piece of 
old dead birch-bark he had gathered a pile 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


57 


of fairly dry sticks and fine twigs, which 
Ganawa would use in starting the fire. 

“ My son,” Ganawa warned the flushed 
boy, “ if you wander away from camp in a 
fog, some night you will sleep in the wet 
bush.” 

Then Ganawa started to make a fire. He 
took a piece of tinder and a piece of flint 
between his left thumb and forefinger and 
with a sort of steel ring held in his right 
hand, he struck a few sharp quick blows at 
the edge of the flint. Ray was not sure 
that he had seen any sparks fly off the flint, 
but the tinder had caught fire and began to 
give off a little smoke. Ganawa placed it 
in a handful of dry moss, spruce needles and 
very fine dr^^ twigs and swung the whole 
over his head. The smoke increased at once, 
and in a very short time a red, smoky flame 
burst forth, and Ganawa put his little fire 
under the dry sticks and twigs prepared for 
it. The fire started a little slowly, because 
none of the material used was as dry as it 
would have been on a bright, sunny day. 


58 


THE GOLD ROCK 


However, in about ten minutes the campers 
had a bright cheerful blaze, which only a 
heavy rain could have put out. 

If one should camp on Montreal Island 
in a fog at the present time, he would hear 
through the fog the deep roar of the whistle 
of steamers headed for the canals at Sault 
Sainte Marie with iron ore or grain, and of 
other steamers that have come up through 
the “ Soo ” Canals with coal or merchandise 
from the east or from Europe. At the time 
of our story a few very small sailboats be¬ 
longing to French or English traders were 
the only ships on Lake Superior larger than 
Indian canoes. Ganawa also built a small 
fire in the center of the tepee, ‘‘ to take the 
cold out of it,” as he said. The fire on the 
outside he and Bruce built up until it was 
quite big; and on several stumps around it 
they piled up the spruce and balsam boughs, 
which were to serve for their beds. 

“Wet boughs make a poor bed,” observed 
Ganawa. “ We shall dry them before we 
take them in.” 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 59 

Ganawa was not in a talkative mood. 
Most of the time he sat and gazed into the 
fire, or seemed to be listening to the songs 
of white-throats and hermit-thrushes, which 
are not silenced in the North Country either 
by fog or cold weather. 

When Bruce finally ventured to ask, 
“ What is my father thinking of so long? ” 
Ganawa replied: “ I am thinking of your 
brother that sailed away on the Big Lake, 
and I am also thinking of Hamogeesik. He 
is a bad man, and I do not know where he 
has gone. He may have gone the same way 
that we are going. Two winters ago, he 
went with a white man from Quebec to 
Lake Manitowik and Lake Missinaibi to 
trap beaver and otter and marten. When 
the streams ran free of ice Hamogeesik 
came back with many furs, but the white 
man did not come back. Hamogeesik told 
that he had broken through the ice on Lake 
Missinaibi. Some of the Indians believed 
the story, but many of them did not believe 
it.” 


60 


THE GOLD ROCK 


It grew dark early, so pitchy, inky dark 
that Ray was afraid to go out of sight of 
the camp-fire. He soon grew sleepy, rolled 
up in his blankets inside the tepee, and slept 
soundly till morning. But for Ganawa and 
Bruce the night was not so restful. For 
some time the white lad was kept awake by 
the thumping of the rabbits, which were nu¬ 
merous on the island. But several times 
during the night some larger animal prowled 
about the tepee. It never uttered a sound, 
but Ganawa said it moved through the brush 
like a wolf. “ But I do not know why a 
wolf should stay on this island during sum¬ 
mer,” he added. “ They cross over on the 

ice in winter, but they leave this island and 

\ 

other islands before the ice breaks up.” 


CHAPTER VII 


A WOLF 

When the campers awoke, the fog was 
beginning to lift and a gentle wind was blow¬ 
ing from the northwest. The lake seemed 
to be quiet, but Ganawa suggested that they 
walk along a game trail to the southwest 
corner of the island, where they could have 
a look over the open water, which was not 
sheltered by being in the lee of the island. 
Here an unexpected sight met the eyes of 
the white boys. Past the rocky point of the 
island was sweeping a wild sea; at least that 
was the impression produced in the minds of 
the white boys by the ceaselessly rolling, 
swishing, breaking, splashing and pounding 
waves that kept rolling on and on from the 
great open sea to the northwest and were 
ever crowding, crowding in upon the shore 

and the islands of the southeastern part of 

61 


62 


THE GOLD ROCK 


the lake over a stretch of open water of some 
two hundred miles. 

‘‘ Ugh, look at them smash against the 
shore!” Ray exclaimed to Bruce. “You 
will see, Bruce, some day they will eat up 
the whole island.” 

Ganawa, however, was not at all excited 
by the dashing and breaking waves. With 
a far-away gaze he stood and looked out upon 
the restless sea, and Bruce wondered where 
the thoughts of the old hunter were roam¬ 
ing. Perhaps he was thinking of Hamo- 
geesik. Or was he trying to work out in 
his mind the best route, where they might 
search with some probability of finding a 
trace of Bruce’s lost white friend? Bruce 
himself felt utterly helpless and hopeless in 
this sublime great wilderness of lake, islands, 
rocky shores, and grand sweeping wooded 
hills, over which the silent forest stretched 
clear to Hudson Bay and the Arctic regions. 

“ If I had known,” he said to himself as he 
was standing alone under a weather-beaten 
spruce and looking out over the waves. 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


63 

‘‘ I never should have had the nerve to come 
out to this region and try to find anything 
or anybody; but I should have expected to 
lose everything, including my life. On 
Lake George and Lake Champlain out east, 
one can see shores and water and woods, and 
everything has an end; but here everything 
stretches away into an endless vast; the lake, 
the shore, the hills and forest, and I sup¬ 
pose the rivers will do the same if we ever 
begin to explore them.” 

While Ganawa and Bruce had each been 
busy with his own thoughts, Ray, after the 
manner of a young boy, had seen all that 
Ganawa and Bruce had seen; but upon him 
the grand sublime scene had a different 
effect. He drank it all in, and his young 
mind was eager for more new impressions. 
The past and the future did not worry him; 
he was living in the present. 

The sun was out by this time, the white 
gulls were sailing and screaming near shore, 
and from the thickets came the whistle of 
white-throats and the wild melody of the 


64 


THE GOLD ROCK 


hermit-thrushes, but in the sunshine now the 
songs were much more vigorous and vibrant 
than they had been in the fog yesterday. 

“ My father,” asked Ray, “ are we going 
to travel to-day? ” On being told that the 
lake was too rough for a canoe, Ray asked 
if he might run about for a while on the 
game trails and along the shore. The sun 
was out now, he assured Bruce, so he would 
not get lost again. 

Neither Ganawa nor Bruce objected, and 
Ray started out along an old moose or cari¬ 
bou trail. He did not expect to see any of 
this big game, because Ganawa had told the 
white lads that all the large animals leave 
the islands near the coast before the ice 
breaks up in spring. One thing, however, 
Ray did not know, the visit of the strange 
animal to the tepee during the preceding 
night. If he had known of that strange 
beast, he would have been afraid to go ex¬ 
ploring by himself. 

He followed briskly a somewhat dim trail 
that led northward near the west coast of 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


65 


the island, where waves and wind exerted 
their greatest force and where the island has 
for several thousand years received the most 
severe battering of the waves. 

Ray followed this trail for the same reason 
that animals and men of all ages have fol¬ 
lowed trails; because it is so much easier to 
travel along a trail than to cut across the 
brush. The footing on a trail is much more 
secure than it is across brush, roots, and 
rocks, and one does not have to watch his 
direction so carefully. 

Ray had walked, whistling and singing, 
about a mile, when the trail turned a little 
away from the coast to an almost bare area 
of several acres. At the end of this open 
space Ray saw something that for a moment 
almost made his blood freeze. 

On a big bare rock stood a wolf looking 
at him. Ray’s first impulse was to turn 
and run; but he was too scared to run. He 
knew that if the wolf followed him he would 
soon overtake him. So in sheer desperation 
and make-believe courage Ray stepped up 


66 THE GOLD ROCK 

on a rock, swung his arms over his head and 
yelled. But this wolf did not do what 
wolves are supposed to do when they see a 
man in summer. He did not run, but he 
stood right there, and he even wagged his 
tail, and Ray could see that he had a big 
bushy tail. 

And then before Ray’s very eyes, the wolf 
on the rock became transformed. He sud¬ 
denly lost the appearance of a wild wolf of 
the Great Lakes country, and took on the 
shape and almost the color of a creature 
with which Ray had often roamed the hills 
of Vermont, and Ray had cried bitterly 
when Bruce had insisted that Ray could not 
take him along. 

Ray dropped the club he had picked up 
and for a moment he stood spellbound. 
Then he called: “ Shep! Come here, Shep! 
Come here! ” And he ran toward the ani¬ 
mal. The animal also came bounding to¬ 
ward the boy. The boy threw his arms 
around him, and the animal, as if mad with 
joy, danced around the lad, and jumped up 



On a big bare rock stood a wolf looking at him 

Page 65, 




OF THE CHIPPEWA 67 

on him and almost knocked him over in his 
unrestrained expression of joy. 

“ Come on, Shep, you go home with me.” 
The boy spoke as if he were talking to a 
human being. “ Don’t you get lost again. 
You stay right with me. You are going 
with us. If they won’t let you go with us, 
I shall stay right here on the island with you, 
and Ganawa and Bruce can go alone and 
hunt up their man.” 

And then the boy started back on the 
trail, the dog following close on his heels, as 
if the two had been friends for years. 


CHAPTER VIII 


TAWNY 

Ray approached the camp with his face 
flushed and his heart beating fast. He had 
been lonely on this trip thus far, but now he 
had found a companion. 

“Oh, Bruce! Oh, Bruce!” he called 
when he had approached within calling dis¬ 
tance. “ I found somebody on the island, 
and I want to keep him.” 

“ What in the world did you pick up! ” 
Bruce exclaimed, when he saw the animal 
that looked so much like the collie which 
Ray had been forced to leave behind in Ver¬ 
mont. Only this dog was bigger and ap¬ 
peared more wolf-like. Bruce felt almost a 
little afraid of the beast, but Ray stood with 
his right arm around the neck of the big 
tawny animal, who seemed to be as content 
and happy as the young boy. 

“ I am going to keep him! ” Ray spoke 

68 


. THE GOLD ROCK 69 

with his face set, without explaining just 
how he found the animal. 

“ There must be some Indians camping on 
this island,” Bruce suggested, when Ganawa 
stepped, out of the tepee. 

“ No, my sons,” Ganawa replied, “ no In¬ 
dians camp on this island more than a few 
days, and this dog is no Indian dog. I have 
seen this dog with some miners that worked 
for the brave trader Alexander Henry, and 
they must have lost him on this island. It 
may be that he was hunting on a trail or 
was digging out a woodchuck, when the 
miners had to leave.” 

Ganawa was, however, not at all pleased 
with Ray’s desire of keeping the dog. “We 
shall have to find food for him,” he said, 
“ and we may have to be on our journey a 
long time. The country and the lake are 
very big, there are many islands and many 
rivers run into the Big Lake. Yes^ my sons, 
very many rivers race and tumble into the 
Big Lake with much cold and noisy water. 
These rivers,” he continued after a pause. 


70 


THE GOLD ROCK 


“ look very small on the maps which white 
men make of them and of the lake, but 
when you go to the place where they run 
into the lake, or when you try to cross them 
in the woods, you find that they are big 
rivers with swift currents. Some of them 
are big only at the time the snow melts in the 
forest on the hills, but some of them bring 
the water from many lakes and are big at 
all seasons even if no rain falls from the 
clouds for many moons.” 

Ray had listened with only one ear, so to 
speak, to Ganawa’s talk on the many rivers 
that fall into Lake Superior. 

“ My father,” he replied timidly, “ I could 
hunt for my dog. Maybe he will also eat 
fish and maybe he can catch rabbits for him¬ 
self.” 

“ My son, he may do that,” Ganawa ad¬ 
mitted, “ but I am afraid he may upset our 
canoe and that he may bark at a time when 
he should keep still. It is hard to teach a 
dog anything after he has grown up.” 

Both Ray and Bruce had to admit the 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


71 


truth of these points, but now Bruce came to 
the assistance of his small brother by say¬ 
ing: “ My father, let us try this dog. Some 
dogs lie still in a canoe and do not bark 
much. If this is not a good dog, we can 
leave him on the mainland, where there is 
more game and where he may find some In¬ 
dian camp or make his way back to the 
traders at the Soo.” 

“ Bruce, I tell you something,” Ray spoke 
up when the two brothers were alone, “ if 
you are going to leave my dog behind in the 
woods, I am going to stay behind, too.” 

“ Don’t talk foolish,” Bruce replied 
sharply. “ Do you suppose I would leave 
you stranded in this wilderness with a half- 
wild dog? Remember you promised that 
you would do what I told you when I took 
you along. Can’t you understand that no¬ 
body would ever see your face again or even 
your bones, if you were set out on this wild 
shore? Remember that there are no white 
men on the whole shore from the Soo to the 
Michipicoten River, and Ganawa told us he 


72 


THE GOLD ROCK 


did not know of any Indians except at 
Batchawana Bay and at the mouth of the 
Michipicoten, and he was not sure that we 
should find any at the Michipicoten. 

“ Then you want to remember that travel¬ 
ling overland is not as easy as gliding along 
in a canoe. You would have to go up-hill 
and down-hill, over rocks and fallen timber, 
through swamps and across many streams. 
Don’t you remember what Ganawa said 
when I asked him how we could reach the 
Michipicoten? He smiled when I told him 
you and I should like to travel through the 
forest on an Indian trail and said: ‘ My son, 
travelling on land to the Michipicoten would 
be very hard work. You could carry only 
your gun, one blanket and very little food, 
and your moccasins would wear out on the 
rocks. The black flies and the mosquitoes 
would eat you up and would not let you 
sleep. There is no trail from the Soo to 
the Michipicoten, because no Indians ever 
go that way on land. They always go in 
canoes on the lake. At night they camp 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 73 

near the lake on shore or on an island where 
the cool air keeps away the black flies and 
the mosquitoes, and when the lake is stormy 
they camp till it is calm again/ ” 

“ I did forget about the black flies and 
mosquitoes,” Ray admitted somewhat hum¬ 
bly, “ but I don’t want to leave my dog. I 
am going to call him Tawny. Don’t you 
think that is a good name? ” 

“ It is a good name for him,” Bruce 
agreed, “ and I hope he will be a well- 
behaved dog in the canoe and in camp. 
Perhaps he will leave us of his own accord 
as soon as we camp on the mainland.” 

“ He will not leave us,” Ray replied indig¬ 
nantly. “ He has no master and no place to 
go. I would like to know how he happened 
to be left on this island. Perhaps the boat of 
some white man, who owned him, was 
swamped near here, and Tawny swam to the 
island. The mainland is over three miles 
away and he never could have reached that 
through the ice-cold water of this lake, but 
he is not going to leave us! ” 


I 



CHAPTER IX 

THE PROVING OF TAVTNY 

Ganavta decided that they might as well 
camp another night on Montreal Island, be¬ 
cause the lake was still somewhat rough with 
big long swells beating against the island 
from the northwest. But on the follow¬ 
ing morning the great clear sea lay spread 
out calm in all its summer glory under a 
clear sky. White-throats and song-spar¬ 
rows were singing in the spruces on which 
the sunlight sparkled and was reflected from 
a myriad of dewdrops, while the forest on 
the high mainland toward the east bounded 
the clear glittering lake like a dark wall of 
mystery, and aroused in both white lads a 
strong desire to climb these dark, forested 
slopes and learn what there might be in the 
great inland behind. 

Ganawa started early and steered a 

74 


THE GOLD ROCK 


75 


course which left a group of small rocky 
islands now known as Lizard Islands on 
their right. At a distance of some twelve 
miles from Montreal Island they came to 
another island about a mile and a half by 
two miles in size. This is now called Leach 
Island. 

Ray expressed a wish to land and explore 
this island. “ Are you going to look for an¬ 
other dog? ” asked Bruce. “ This one will 
give us trouble enough.” 

The younger lad replied that he did not 
want any more dogs. ‘‘ Do you think I am 
so stupid that I think there is a dog on every 
island? ” he protested vigorously. 

Ganawa laughed at the tilt of words be¬ 
tween his sons and told them that this island 
was much like Montreal Island. 

“We shall camp early this evening,” he 
said, “ in a fine little harbor, and maybe my 
small son will catch some big fish for our 
meal.” 

After they had passed Leach Island, 
Ganawa steered the canoe within a mile or 


76 THE GOLD ROCK 

less of the shore, and never had the lads seen 
a more magnificent view. They were 
headed north. To their left lay the end¬ 
less blue sea with no land in sight; but to 
their right stood the big forested wall of 
rocks, rising to a height of several hundred 

or even a thousand feet within a mile or two 

■0 

of the lake. The sun was now shining on 
this great forest so one could see clearly the 
mixture of spruce, balsam, fir, and birch, 
with isolated white pines that were taller 
and seemed to belong to an older generation 
of trees. 

It was still early in the afternoon when 
Ganawa rounded some cliffs to the right 
and landed the canoe, as he had promised, in 
a sheltered bay of shallow water, now known 
as Indian Harbor. 

“We have come ten leagues,” he said, as 
he lifted the canoe to a safe place on land; 
“ it is ten leagues more to the Michipicoten. 
My big son and I will make camp. My 
little son should catch us some trout for our 
meal.” 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


77 


“ I do want to catch them,” Ray replied, 
“ but I have no bait.” 

Then Ganawa took a piece of red flannel 
out of his hunting bag. “ Here, my son,” he 
told the lad, “ that will catch them, if they 
are here.” 

Ray was in high spirits. His dog had 
behaved well. When gulls and eagles 
soared rather close to the boat. Tawny did 
not even lift his head, and now after the 
canoe had landed, he showed no inclination 
to leave but literally dogged Ray’s foot¬ 
steps. The fish were biting, too, and the 
lad was soon wild with excitement. Never 
had Ray seen such big rainbow trout. “ Oh, 
Bruce, come and look,” he called; “ they are 
too beautiful to eat,” after, with much 
splashing and yelling, he had pulled out 
three of the flashing, jumping fish, weighing 
from two to three pounds each. 

And then came the climax of the day for 
the lad. A big five-pounder took a vicious 
bite at the red flannel, and pulled with much 
more strength than Ray had anticipated. 


78 


THE GOLD ROCK 


The lad held to his pole but in his effort to 
reach the line, he slipped on the rock and 
tumbled in amongst the boulders. Tawny 
uttered just two loud barks before he 
jumped after the lad, and when Bruce came 
rushing to the spot, boy and dog were strug¬ 
gling in the water and Bruce could not tell 
which one was trying to save the other. 
But in all the excitement Ray held to the 
line, and when the giant trout at last flashed 
his great mass of pink and his red spots on 
the rock, Ray fell on the wildly jumping 
flsh, seized him behind the gills and then 
ran to the tepee yelling: “ Look, Father, 
look. I’ve got him! I’ve got him! ” 

By this time a good Are was blazing near 
the tepee, and Ray was soon in dry clothes 
and as comfortable and warm as if he had 
never had a plunge-bath in Lake Superior. 
When Bruce taunted him with being pulled 
in by the big fish, Ray only laughed and 
said, “ The fish was worth a cold bath, and 
I should be glad to fall in again if I could 
catch another five-pound rainbow trout.” 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


79 


“ My father, this evening I shall make a 
feast,” Bruce told Ganawa. The big trout 
was soon cleaned and now Bruce made use 
of a piece of bacon he had bought of a trader 
at the Soo and taken along as a surprise for 
Ray and as a kind of emergency ration, for 
he knew that even the best of Indians are 
likely to trust to luck for their next meal. 

Bruce placed a strip of bacon inside the 
big fish. He slit the meat along the back 
and placed a strip of bacon in the cut, and 
to the outside of the fish he tied several 
strips of bacon with fine strips of willow 
bark, and he also used a little salt on the 
inside and outside of the fish. Then he 
fastened a smooth clean stick lengthwise 
through the fish, and for about fifteen min¬ 
utes he kept the fish slowly turning over a 
hot fire of live coals, while each end of the 
rod used as a spit was supported in the 
fork of a stick set into the ground near the 
fire. 

When the bacon began to sizzle and drip 
and the fish began to turn brown, Ray could 


80 


THE GOLD ROCK 


hardly wait until Bruce declared that the 
fish was cooked through and well done. 

“ It is a good feast,” Ganawa declared as 
soon as he tasted the dark pink meat, and 
how Ray and Bruce liked it was shown by 
the fact that nothing was left for Tawny but 
the head and the bones. 

But Tawny did not go hungry at the 
feast. In addition to several trout, Ray had 
also caught a pickerel, which the lad cooked 
over the coals before he gave it to Tawny 
for his feast. 

“ I don’t like to see him eat a raw pick¬ 
erel,” Ray declared when Ganawa told him 
that dogs in the Indian country would eat 
anything that is given them. 

When the three campers rolled up in their 
blankets in the tepee. Tawny curled up be¬ 
tween the entrance and the fire and did not 
move all night, although some rabbits 
thumped outside the tepee and some wild 
mice scurried about. 

“ He is a good dog,” Ganawa said in the 
morning, “ and my little son may keep him.” 


CHAPTER X 


THE RIDDLE 

Before the travellers started next morn¬ 
ing they had more broiled trout for break¬ 
fast, and Ray caught and cooked another 
pickerel for Tawny. 

Ray and Bruce had not expected to catch 
brook trout and pickerel in Lake Superior, 
but Ganawa informed them that these fish 
may be caught in many places near shore 
in shallow water, but that they are never 
caught in nets set in deep water far from 
shore. 

Rainbow trout found along the shore in 
Lake Superior are called “ coasters ” by fish¬ 
ermen and explorers at the present time, as 
has been told. These trout as well as pick¬ 
erel come into the lake from the many 
streams that enter Lake Superior. They 
continue to feed along the shore, but never 

go into the deep water away from shore. 

81 


82 


THE GOLD ROCK 


It was a surprise to Bruce and Ray to 
catch pickerel and brook trout in the same 
pool, but Ganawa told them that the big 
brook or rainbow trout are not afraid of 
either pickerel or pike and are often found 
in the same pools in some of the streams that 
flow into the lake. 

Brook or rainbow trout must not be con¬ 
fused with the lake trout that live in both 
deep and shallow water of Lake Superior, as 
well as in a number of other northern lakes. 
Lake trout, whitefish, and lake herring are 
to this day important commercial fish of 
Lake Superior. 

“ It is ten leagues to the mouth of the 
Michipicoten,’’ said Ganawa when they were 
ready to start. Ganawa generally gave dis¬ 
tances in leagues, because he had become 
accustomed to do so during his contact with 
the French traders and voyageurs. France 
had lost her vast North American posses¬ 
sions only two years before, and the Indians 
had not yet become used to English ways 
and English measures, but Bruce and Ray 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


83 


had learned by this time that a league was 
equal to about three English miles. 

The weather continued fine, so that 
Ganawa steered the canoe straight across 
from point to point, and while approaching 
Brule Point, they were three miles from 
shore. Beyond Brule Point the wooded 
hills rose to a height of seven hundred feet 
above the lake and made both lads feel that 
they would like to go inland and explore the 
mountains as Ray called them. 

“ Maybe we shall explore plenty of moun¬ 
tains,” Ganawa promised the lads, “ after we 
have reached the Michipicoten.” 

“ There is a house! ” exclaimed Ray, as 
they entered the mouth of the river, which 
at that time was not obstructed by sand-bars 
as it is at the present time. The log house 
to which Ray had pointed stood on a clear¬ 
ing south of the river. It was not occupied, 
but above the door were painted the letters 
H. B. C., which Bruce knew meant Hudson 
Bay Company. 

Those were the days when this great Eng- 


84 


THE GOLD ROCK 


/ 

lish company tried to extend the monopoly 
in the fur trade, which it enjoyed farther 
north, also along the Great Lakes. But it 
was never very successful in this attempt. 
Independent individual traders, and later 
the Northwest Company and American 
traders were active competitors of the Hud¬ 
son Bay Company. 

A little farther up-stream, on the north 
side of the river on a level sandy plateau, 
where now stands a small village of whites 
and Indians known as “ the Mission,” the 
travellers found a small camp of Indians, 
consisting of Ininiwac people and a few 
families of Chippewas. 

The arrival of the visitors caused a great 
stir in the lonely camp. A dozen cur dogs 
barked savagely at the men and at Tawny, 
who, however, treated the whole pack with 
an air of contempt. He walked erect close 
to Ray, with his hair bristling and his teeth 
flashing and uttering now and then a fierce 
low growl, when one of the half-starved curs 
made ^ move as if to snap at him. A few 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


85 


small children scampered into the tepees at 
the sight of the strangers while several men 
arose from their seats outside the tepees, 
drove away the yelping dogs and shook 
hands with the strangers. 

Ganawa was delighted to find some of his 
own people at the camp, for he did not un¬ 
derstand the talk of Ininiwac people very 
well, and the Indians of the Great Lakes 
region were not good sign-talkers like the 
Indians of the plains. 

By this time Bay and Bruce had picked 
up quite a number of Chippewa words, and 
when they joined the circle of Ganawa and 
his friends, they could understand enough of 
the conversation to learn that Ganawa was 
asking if they knew anything about Jack 
Dutton, or if they had seen him. 

Later in the evening, when the three were 
inside of their own tepee, with a small bright 
fire of dry sticks burning in the center, 
Ganawa told the lads in English what he 
had learned. 

Jack Dutton with another white man had 


86 


THE GOLD ROCK 


been in the Michipicoten country about 
twelve moons ago, last winter. There had 
been a rumor that the two men had made a 
valuable cache of fur within one or two 
days’ journey of this place, the mouth of 
the Michipicoten. A hunter, who had been 
following the track of a moose, had ac¬ 
cidentally discovered the camp and the fur 
cache of the two white men, because they 
had made their camp on a little stream near 
a moose trail which led from a big lake to 
a small lake farther back in the wilderness 
of rocky wooded hills that stretch north¬ 
ward from the Sault Sainte Marie and Lake 
Superior for a distance of fifty to two 
hundred miles, where they run out into a 
flat country of the greatest black spruce 
forest in North America, a sombre dark 
forest which extends northward almost to 
Hudson Bay and eastward a thousand miles 
from Lake of the Woods to Nova Scotia and 
New Brunswick. 

The two white men, the hunter had told, 
had collected and bought of some Indians 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


87 


only the most valuable furs, such as silver 
foxes, dark prime beaver, and marten. All 
lower-grade furs they had traded to the 
Indians for a few high-grade furs or had 
used them for clothing and robes. “ They 
had a big canoe-load of furs worth ten hun¬ 
dred beavers,” the old hunter had told, hold¬ 
ing up the fingers of both hands to em¬ 
phasize his story. “ The white man gave me 
lead and powder so I could kill the fat 
moose, and my squaw and I had plenty 
of meat till the ducks came north and 
the ice left the streams so we could catch 
fish.” 

The Indians had understood that the lead 
and powder had been given the old hunter 
on the condition that he would not betray 
the location of the white men’s fur cache. 
He had not even told them the distance of 
the cache from Lake Superior, but he had 
returned within four days and had then 
taken his squaw with him. Where is the 
hunter now? ” asked Bruce. “ Perhaps he 
would tell us more, so we might learn if one 


88 THE GOLD ROCK 

of the white men was my friend, Jack Dut¬ 
ton.” 

He and his squaw have gone to visit a 
married daughter, who lives on Lake Win¬ 
nipeg,” Ganawa replied. 

“ My father,” asked Ray after a brief 
silence, “ do you know the way to Lake Win¬ 
nipeg? Perhaps we might find the hunter 
and ask him to tell us more.” 

“ My son,” Ganawa answered kindly, “ I 
know the way to Lake Winnipeg, but it is 
so far away that I fear the lakes and 
streams would be frozen again by the time 
we returned to this camp. 

“ And now, my sons, it is time to roll up 
in our blankets. To-morrow I shall tell 
you more news; and, maybe, we shall paddle 
up the Michipicoten, which is a good river, 
with clear cold water in which live many 
good fish of the color of the rainbow.” 


CHAPTER XI 


MYSTERY AND DANGER 

In the morning Ganawa told the lads 
some news which he had kept to himself the 
evening before. 

‘‘ There was a visitor at this camp only a 
few sleeps ago,” he said. “ It was Hamo- 
geesik. He is no good Indian, he is no 
good white man. He is a bad Indian and 
a bad white man in one. He asked my 
Chippewa friends if they had seen two white 
boys and he tried to find out from the Inini- 
wac people where two white men had made 
a cache of fur, and if the white men had 
been looking for any gold rock. Most white 
men, he said, were looking for gold rock all 
the time. The Ininiwac people told him 
they did not know where the two white men 
had cached their fur more than twelve moons 
ago; and none of the Indians here know 


90 THE GOLD ROCK 

whether the two white men are still back in 
the hills or whether they have left and taken 
their furs away. 

“ But I know what is in the black heart 
of Hamogeesik. I think he is trying to 
follow us, for he has learned that we are try¬ 
ing to find the two men who made a cache 
of fur and looked for gold rock in the hills 
from which the waters run to the Michipico- 
ten.” 

The three travellers remained several days 
at the camp with the Ininiwacs and the 
Chippewas, because Ganawa thought he 
might discover more definite information 
about the place where the two white men had 
made their cache, whether they had found or 
had been looking for any gold rock, and 
whether they were still in the country. 

On the fourth morning he said: “ My 
sons, we must leave this camp. I have 
learned very little from the people here, and 
I know now that I shall learn nothing more; 
so we must travel among the hills up the 
river and look for signs of our friends. But 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


91 


I fear we shall find nothing, unless the Great 
Spirit sends me more light. The country is 
very big, and there are as many hills and 
streams and lakes as there are leaves on a 
tree. There are many big lakes and many 
more small lakes. No Indian has ever 
found all the small lakes and small streams, 
only the beaver people have found them and 
the fish that shine like a rainbow. But we 
must now paddle up-stream among the high 
hills and trust in the Great Spirit that he 
may let us find some sign that may tell us 
where to look for your friends.” 

Had the three travellers been on a plea¬ 
sure or camping trip, they could hardly 
have chosen a finer and more beautiful river. 
For a mile or two they passed through a 
level sandy country into which the river has 
cut its channel, making on the north side a 
steep bank more than fifty feet high. This 
level country was covered with a growth of 
jack-pine, spruces and balsam firs; and to 
this day a most beautiful, natural jack-pine 
park extends some miles up-stream toward 


92 


THE GOLD ROCK 


the big falls of the Michipicoten, of which we 
shall soon hear more. 

The area of this jack-pine park was cov¬ 
ered by the waters of Lake Superior a long 
time ago, when the big lake was even bigger 
than it is now; and over the whole Lake 
Superior region is written a most wonderful 
story of great ice-sheets and floods for those 
who can read the story of lakes and streams 
and hills and of the great deposits of gravel 
and small stones and large boulders. 

While Ganawa and Bruce were paddling 
the canoe up the fairly swift current, Ray 
sat in the stern and had a line out, baited 
with a piece of flannel; and by the time 
Ganawa stopped for a meal and for rest, 
Ray had caught enough rainbow trout for 
the men, and a pike and a pickerel for 
Tawny. 

The Michipicoten is carrying about as 
much water as the Wabash or the Minne¬ 
sota, but its water is clear and cold with 
just a tint of brown in it, and pike and 
pickerel and large rainbow trout may still 


93 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 

be caught in its waters in the same pool. It 
is not to be thought, however, that they will 
always bite on a piece of flannel; for, like 
fish in other waters, at times no bait will 
tempt them. 

If any of my readers should ever paddle 
up the Michipicoten from the mouth toward 
the big falls, they would naturally use a fly 
or they might keep a trolling-line out and 
enjoy the thrill of catching a big rainbow 
trout, for the country of the Michipicoten 
is still a wilderness and its waters still flow 
cold and clear. 

In 1775 spoon hooks had not yet been in¬ 
vented and, of course, no trout-flies could be 
bought of any Indian traders. 

Whenever the three travellers came to a 
place where some one had camped, they 
landed and examined the spot with great 
care. 

‘‘ My father,” asked Bruce, “ how would 
you be able to tell whether Indians or white 
men had camped on the river? ” 

“ If I found a button,” Ganawa replied. 


94 THE GOLD ROCK 

“ or a coin, or paper with printed words, I 
should say that white men had made the 
camp.” 

They spent the better part of a day in 
paddling some ten or twelve miles up¬ 
stream. They examined minutely three 
camping-places near the river. At each 
place the Indians had left their tepee-poles 
standing, as is their custom to this day. 
None of the places showed signs of very 
recent camps; however, at one camp Ray 
picked up a scrap of printed paper; but the 
words were French and the sign, therefore, 
gave no clue as to the whereabouts of the 
friend of Bruce. 

At the foot of some rapid water, Ganawa 
made camp for the night, and the lads now 
saw the advantage of leaving the tepee-poles 
standing at each camp, for within a few 
minutes Ganawa had their long strip of deer¬ 
skin wound around the poles, fastened it to 
the ground, and the tepee was ready. 

“We had better sleep in the tepee,” he 
remarked, “ for the night will be cool and 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


95 


the air damp in the deep shaded valley near 
the river. 

“ To-morrow, my sons,” he added, “ we 
must push our canoe with a pole or drag it 
on a rope, and in some places we must carry 
it, for it is a league from here to the big 
falls and the water is very swift all the way 
and many rocks have rolled into the river 
from the hills.” 

That evening Ray lay awake a long time 
listening to the talk of the river, which 
gurgled and bubbled, roared and rushed and 
rippled past the camp, as if a crowd of liv¬ 
ing men or spirits talking in a strange lan¬ 
guage were for ever and ever marching past 
the camp. 

Then the lad was bold enough to turn 
aside the tepee-flap and step out into the 
night. If Tawny had not come out with 
him, he would have been afraid. A strange 
sight met his eyes. Above the stream, which 
now looked uncanny and forbidding, hung 
a fog which in the moonlight looked 
like a long gray cloud. Patches of moon- 


96 


THE GOLD ROCK 


light lay bright on the trail and the high 
tree tops on the hills opposite stood out in 
bold relief, while the tree trunks near by 
stood like black spectres. A big owl was 
hooting in the distance. Or was it the howl¬ 
ing of a wolf? And some small creature 
rushed from the trail into the thicket. 

The spookiness of the moonlight night 
seized Ray. He turned and walked quickly 
back to the tepee, crept under his blanket, 
head and all, and, listening again to the talk 
of the river, he soon fell asleep. 


CHAPTER XII 


BEGINNING THE SEARCH 

Ray was surprised next forenoon at the 
ease with which Ganawa managed their 
journey up-stream. For the greater part 
of the distance the old Indian knelt in the 
stern of the canoe, and by means of a pole 
steered and pushed the craft safely past 
many rocks and through much swift water, 
while Bruce walked along the south bank 
and pulled on a long rope. In a few places 
they lifted the canoe out of the water and 
carried it a short distance over land. Ray, 
with his gun and his dog, walked along the 
trail as if he were furnishing the safe con¬ 
duct for the two canoeists. Although 
Ganawa and Bruce worked the canoe up¬ 
stream with great caution, they nevertheless 
made such good progress that they reached 
the great whirlpool at the foot of the falls 
during the forenoon. 

97 


98 


THE GOLD ROCK 


The falls of the Michipicoten have the 
character of a mountain cataract. The 
water does not drop over a projecting cliff 
as it does at Niagara, but in some half dozen 
turns and twists it rushes down a steep cliff 
of granite. Over the last step the water 
rushes at an angle which makes a mad whirl¬ 
pool, in which the water turns and turns like 
a caged animal that is vainly looking for an 
escape from its prison. At certain stages of 
the water, the outflow from the whirlpool 
seems to come entirely from below, while the 
whirling surface water will hold logs and 
other objects in its grip for days to leave 
them finally stranded on the rocks. When 
the water is at this stage, even the lumber¬ 
men And it at times impossible to break 
the whirling and milling movement of the 
logs. 

From the whirlpool the travellers had to 
carry their canoe and packs up a steep trail 
of a hundred and fifty feet and some dis¬ 
tance beyond, until it was safe to put the 
canoe in the water again; for above great 


99 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 

falls and rapids the water of a river acquires 
a vicious gliding swiftness, which seizes men 
and animals as with a vise-like grip from 
which they can seldom escape. The water 
above the falls of the Michipicoten is espe¬ 
cially treacherous. The river is wide and 
quite smooth and one may wade into it near 
the shore, but in the deep water in the 
middle of the stream the river is madly 
rushing to the first chute of the falls, and a 
boat or canoe once caught in the midstream 
rush rarely escapes destruction. Even in 
recent years several white men, who did not 
gauge right the danger of the smoothly 
gliding stream, have lost their lives by being 
carried over the falls. 

About a mile above the roaring, thunder¬ 
ing falls, Ganawa stopped at a camping- 
place close to a quiet pool in the river. 

“ My sons,” he said, ‘‘ here we shall stay, 
maybe several days. You, my sons, may 
now set up our tepee and make us a good 
camp.” As in this place also a set of poles 
was standing in position, making camp was 


) • 

) ) t 


100 THE GOLD ROCK 

quick and easy work; but Bruce and Ray, 
after the tepee was up, went to work at 
cutting a goodly lot of firewood. For this 
and other work, Bruce had brought a good 
heavy ax, because, as he said, it seemed 
foolish to him for a full-grown man to work 
with a small boy’s hatchet. He admitted 
that these small axes were valuable weapons 
for the Indian warriors and hunters and for 
the squaws in cutting firewood. “ But for a 
white man,” he insisted, “ give me a real ax, 
the kind used by the wood-choppers and 
farmers of New England. Ray may use an 
Indian hatchet; it is about the right weight 
for him.” 

The lads chopped two kinds of wood. 
One pile consisted of short and dry pieces of 
pine, spruce, mountain ash, white elm, white 
cedar, a little black ash, and small sticks of 
dry willow, moose-maple, pin-cherry, and 
choke-cherry. 

The moose-maple so common north of 
Lake Superior is not a real tree, but only 
a good-sized bush. The lads did not cut 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


101 


any dry birch, because dead birch wood 
found in the forest is nearly always both 
wet and rotten and valueless as fuel. The 
bark of the birch does not allow the wood to 
dry, and within a few years the dead wood 
has changed to a kind of punk, which is good 
for smoking fish and meat, but quite worth¬ 
less for a real fire. Sugar maple, soft 
maple, oaks, butternut, black walnut, and . 
other trees common farther south and east 
do not grow along the Michipicoten River 
nor are they found in the region of Michipi¬ 
coten Bay. Common broad-leaved trees in 
this region are the aspen, or common poplar, 
the balsam poplar, or balm of Gilead, and 
the white birch. The white birch is the most 
common; it grows to a good size and, if cut 
green, makes the best fuel found in the 
North woods. 

After the lads had cut a supply of dry 
wood for purposes of cooking and for a fire 
in the tepee, they started to cut a lot of 
green birch for their outdoor camp-fires. 
Birch is the only kind of broad-leaved wood 


102 


THE GOLD ROCK 


found in the northern forest which will burn 
green. It will not sputter and throw 
sparks, but after it is well started by the 
use of some dry wood it can be kept going 
indefinitely with a steady red glow by add¬ 
ing fuel as it is needed. 

All the evergreens will burn green, but 
they are unpleasant to handle on account of 
their pitch and they make much black smoke; 
while green poplars, elm, oak, and ironwood 
are so sappy, especially in the summer sea¬ 
son, that they will steam and sizzle on the 
fire and can hardly be made to burn with 
the aid of dry wood. 

After the lads had cut enough wood to 
last them for a week or so, Ganawa told 
them that they must now secure food for 
several days before they could go and look 
for signs of the cache of their friends. 
Bruce was more than willing to do this, be¬ 
cause he saw with much anxiety that the 
small supply of food which they had brought 
with them would soon be gone, if they 
touched it at all. 


103 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 

The great country north and northeast of 
Lake Superior is very poor in wild plant 
food suitable for human beings. There is 
little or no wild rice, and there are no roots 
or bulbs which can be gathered in large 
quantities. There is, however, an abundance 
of blueberries and raspberries in good sea¬ 
sons; but a man who has no bread or meat 
cannot live long on berries. 

In the matter of animal food, however, 
the case stands better for the North Coun¬ 
try. The great swamps, valleys and hills of 
this region have long been and still are the 
home of the moose, the biggest animal of 
the deer family now living. At times wood¬ 
land caribou are found in the region, and 
generally there is a supply of snowshoe rab¬ 
bits. At the present time, deer are fairly 
common in the region, but the journals and 
stories of the old voyageurs and traders do 
not mention deer, which at that time had not 
spread so far north. 

The most reliable food supply of the re¬ 
gion is fish, and Bruce and Ray now set 


104 


THE GOLD ROCK 


about securing enough fish so they might 
later on give all their time to exploring and 
looking for some clue of the whereabouts of 
Jack Dutton. 


CHAPTER XIII 


AT THE BIG POOL 

Few streams in North America furnish 
a better place for rainbow trout than the 
Big Pool just below the falls of the Michi- 
picoten, so Bruce and Ray naturally de¬ 
cided to try their luck in its black whirling 
waters. 

“You should catch some big trout in that 
pool,” Bruce commented as Ray put a piece 
of red flannel on a hook which looked large 
enough to hold a three-pound bass. For a 
little while the trout, if there were any in 
this pool, seemed indifferent to this fake 
bait, as Ray called it. “ If I could only 
find some worms in this country, you would 
soon see me pull them out,” he remarked a 
little impatiently. 

“ Well, you know, Ray, that there are no 

angleworms in a wild country, and you 

might as well try patiently to catch one on 

105 


106 


THE GOLD ROCK 


the flannel bait. After you catch the first 
one, you will soon catch more.” After try¬ 
ing patiently in several places, Ray did land 
a small trout. “ Now,” Bruce advised him, 
“ dress this fish right away, and use its fins 
for bait and see what will happen.” 

It has often been claimed that fish do not 
know one kind of bait from another, and 
that they will strike at anything that moves 
or is conspicuously colored. To a great ex¬ 
tent that is true of such voracious fish as the 
pickerel, but rainbow trout are perhaps the 
most intelligent of all fresh-water fish. 
They may bite at times on a piece of cloth 
or on bacon or pork-rind; but the man who 
uses flies, worms, minnows, fins, or other 
parts of a fish for bait will catch more trout. 

After Ray had baited his hook with a fin, 
it was not long before the fun began, and 
the lads were soon in the midst of more ex¬ 
citing fishing than they had ever dreamed 
of. Ray caught no more small fish. They 
were all bigger than any trout he had ever 
seen in the streams near his Vermont home. 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 107 

Of course, Ray had no reel, no dip-net, no 
creel or stringer to take care of his catch. 
When the line suddenly tightened and began 
to cut the swift, whirling current, Ray grew 
wildly excited. “ Get him, Bruce, get him! ” 
he would call, while he made an effort to 
swing the line around so that Bruce could 
get hold of it, and the older lad in turn 
became almost as excited as Ray; and in 
truth to catch brook trout that run from two 
to three pounds and over in weight is excit¬ 
ing enough to make the blood of even an 
old man run fast again. 

“ Oh, Bruce, you let him get away,” Ray 
exclaimed, after they had been pulling out 
the most beautiful and lively fish for an 
hour. ‘‘ It was a big one, a real giant. I 
saw him come after the bait almost to the 
surface. I was going to hit him with the 
pole, because I thought it was a big pick¬ 
erel. He was almost a yard long. Hon¬ 
estly, Bruce, he looked as big as that! ” and 
Ray indicated the size of the fish by hold¬ 
ing up both of his hands. 


108 THE GOLD ROCK 

“ How many have we? About thirty? 
Bruce, it’s lucky we had a sack, otherwise 
most of them would have jumped back in 
the river. I never saw such wild fish.” 

“ And I never saw such a wild fisherman,” 
Bruce remarked. 

“ I want to catch one more real big one,” 
declared Ray without replying to the older 
lad. ‘‘ Bruce, I never want to catch any 
more sunfish and bullheads.” 

For a short time the trout seemed to be 
taking a rest; but then suddenly there came 
a strike and a pull as if the hook had caught 
on a wildly spinning log. The limber cedar 
pole bent and the tip almost touched the 
water, as the fish rushed into deep water and 
toward the opposite side of the whirlpool. 

“Help me, help me!” Ray called. “I 
can’t hold him. Maybe I’m caught on a 
log. No, I’m not. It’s a fish, Bruce! It’s 
a fish! I can feel it. It’s a big one! ” 

Bruce took the pole, for the younger boy 
was tired out with the excitement of the 
afternoon. “Look out, Bruce, look out!” 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


109 


he called. “ He will pull you into the whirl¬ 
pool and drown you! Maybe I have caught 
an otter or a beaver.” 

But Bruce had now gained control of the 
situation. For some ten or fifteen minutes 
he skillfully played the big fish on a taut 
line. Several times the desperately fighting 
fish broke water, but the line held and the 
hook could not be shaken out. 

“ Now then,” called Bruce, when the 
giant had calmed down. “ Now, Ray, take 
the line and run up the bank.” And out of 
the black pool came a real rainbow giant, the 
like of which neither lad had ever seen. 
Bruce quickly caught the wildly jumping 
fish behind the gills and carried him up the 
bank. 

“ Look,” he called, “ we came near losing 
him the last minute. He was off the hook 
when I caught him.” 

“ Oh, but he is a big one! Let me hold 
him a minute,” Ray pleaded. “ The boys 
in Vermont would never believe that he was 
so big. What do you think he weighs? ” 


110 


THE GOLD ROCK 


“ He weighs six pounds if he weighs an 
ounce,” Bruce asserted, “ and he is over two 
feet long. Ray, these trout are too beauti¬ 
ful to take home. I declare, if this black 
foaming pool were a big glass tank, I should 
put them all back, just to watch a host of 
rainbows swimming around.” 

Bruce was just about to shoulder the load 
of fish when something happened that made 
them forget for a short time the wonderful 
time they had had catching that unheard-of 
mess of trout. 

Tawny, who had acted a little bored at 
the sport in which he could not partake, 
suddenly rushed down the trail. The lads 
heard him bark viciously, as if he had cor¬ 
nered some wild beast and the creature had 
turned at bay on him. The lads, who had 
not taken their guns along, ran down the 
trail, but they could not overtake the dog, 
who for a short time was out of hearing. 
As the lads walked more slowly along the 
trail, the dog, still mad with excitement, 
met them. His hair was wet, but still bris- 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 111 


tling and he evidently wanted them to come 
with him, which the lads did with some hesita¬ 
tion, because they were not armed. 

“ I am afraid a bear turned on him,” Ray 
suggested, “ and we couldn’t fight a bear 
with sticks.” 

“ I have an idea that it was a moose,” 
Bruce suggested. “ The animal probably 
crossed the river and Tawny jumped in after 
him.” 

But when on examining the trail and the 
river bank very carefully, they found neither 
tracks of moose nor bear, nor tracks of any 
kind, they were still more puzzled. 

“ Perhaps he only saw or smelled some¬ 
thing on the other side of the river and got 
himself wet in trying to swim across. He 
is just fool enough to try that; but let us 
go home now, Bruce. Perhaps Ganawa can 
tell us what Tawny was after.” 

They found Ganawa sitting in front of the 
tepee, as if deeply absorbed in thought. He 
was much pleased with the big catch of trout 
the lads brought to camp, but when they 


112 


THE GOLD ROCK 


told him of the strange behavior of Tawny, 
Ganawa’s eyes flashed and he asked, “ Did 
you look for moccasin tracks? Moccasin 
tracks are hard to see on a trail where there 
are many stones.” 

“We did not see any,” Bruce replied, 
“ but we did not think of looking for them; 
we thought only of moose or bear.” 

“We shall go and look for them in the 
morning,” said Ganawa. “ It is getting too 
dark now.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


A PUZZLE 

Thus far the three travellers had enjoyed 
a long spell of that perfect fair weather, 
which during some seasons is common in the 
North Country, while at other seasons sum¬ 
mer comes near missing the great wilderness 
which lies between Lake Superior and Hud¬ 
son Bay. 

By the time Ganawa and the lads had each 
finished a pink-fleshed broiled trout for sup¬ 
per the western sky was overcast and they 
could see the reflection of distant lightning 
on the far-away clouds, although above them 
the stars were shining, and a westerly wind 
soughed somewhat uncannily through the 
tops of spruces and birches and played 
about the crowns of old white pines which 
far overtopped the dense mixed forest of 
spruce, birch, balsam, fir, and white cedar, 

which campers and fishermen may find over 

113 


114 THE GOLD ROCK 

much of the great North Shore country to 
this day. 

“ My father,” Ray had asked, “ why are 
there only a few big pines in the forest? ” 

Ganawa thought a few moments before 
he answered. “ I cannot tell you, my son. 
As long as I remember, and during the time 
of my father, this was always a country of 
a few big pine-trees, but south of the Big 
Lake, where there was for a long time the 
country of the Chippewas, there are large 
forests of very big pine-trees.” 

The question which Ray asked of Ganawa 
is somewhat of a puzzle even to the scientific 
foresters and naturalists of to-day. If one 
asks the oldest present-day Indians for in¬ 
formation, he receives about the same an¬ 
swer which Ganawa gave to Ray. As long 
as the oldest of them remembers and far 
back into the time of their grandfathers, 
isolated giant white pines have towered over 
the other forest trees that do not grow to the 
size of giants. 

In some regions, as those in the poplar 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 115 

forests of the Big Fork country in Minne¬ 
sota, and in the Itasca Forest, the big pines 
are probably the only trees that survived a 
destructive fire between seventy-five or a 
hundred years ago. Of the time of these 
fires neither white men nor Indians have 
now any definite recollection, but unfortu¬ 
nately forest fires have not been rare in this 
great region of variable rainfall and much 
wind. 

North of Lake Superior and in the Michi- 
picoten country, the big pines may really tell 
another story. Perhaps they are an ad¬ 
vance guard in the northward spread of the 
forest trees, after all that vast region had 
been covered by ice. Some of these big 
white pines are very old. They have been 
slow growers. Three hundred narrow rings 
of growth are not rare, and if one could 
carefully examine the rings close to the 
ground he might find four hundred. These 
rings mean that the trees are between three 
hundred and four hundred years old. There 
is no doubt that many of these lone giants 


116 


THE GOLD ROCK 


were struggling seedlings or even lustily 
growing youths when John Smith was saved 
by Pocahontas and when the Pilgrims landed 
on the coast of Massachusetts. Careful in¬ 
vestigation might even show that some of 
these lone sentinels were already beginning 
to reach up to the sunlight when Columbus 
landed on San Salvador. 

It may be that the red squirrels retarded 
the spread of the white pines northward. 
In regions, where these pines are not nu¬ 
merous, the squirrels are likely to strip every 
cone and eat practically every seed. 

Ganawa knew of this habit of the red 
squirrels and he also told Ray that perhaps 
the winters were too long north of the Big 
Lake. “ About thirty leagues farther 
north,” he told the lads, “ begins the great 
forest of the spruce, and no white pines grow 
there, but only spruce-trees; and where the 
land is high and sandy, the jack-pine grows, 
the pine that keeps its little crooked cones 
for many years. And there is only one 
other tree that you would find plentiful, if 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


117 


you would paddle your canoe down one of 
the rivers which flow into the cold salt water 
bay; that tree is the poplar, whose leaves 
whisper and talk in every little wind. The 
poplars grow on good soil near the rivers, 
where a fire has killed the other trees.’’ 

By this time Ray was glad to slip away 
into his blankets. A small fire was burn¬ 
ing in the tepee to keep the place dry and 
warm and also to prevent any mosquitoes 
from coming in at the top; for almost every 
year through June and July the mosquitoes 
are a fearful pest through the whole Great 
Lakes region, and they are often worse 
north of the lakes than south of them. 

Bruce and Ganawa sat for an hour or 
more at the camp-fire, which Bruce kept sup¬ 
plied with green birch logs, while they talked 
over the events of the day and discussed 
plans for finding a clue to the whereabouts 
of Jack Dutton. 

“ We must look sharp along the river for 
signs of a white man’s camp,” said Ganawa, 
“ and if we do not find any, then we must 


118 


THE GOLD ROCK 


go to another river or to some lakes where 
the hunting is good for fur animals. And 
we may find some Indians that can tell us 
where a white man made a camp, but this 
country is very big and very few Indians 
live in it, and only few of them travel 
through the region on their way to the Eng¬ 
lish traders who live far to the north on the 
shore of the salt water.” 

By this time the storm had come up from 
the west, not with the violence that often 
accompanies rainstorms on the plains and 
along the Missouri, but quietly, with almost 
no wind. Bruce poured water on the camp¬ 
fire and for a short time he stood in the 
darkness enjoying the view of the hills and 
the wild forest as it was illumined from time 
to time by the lightning that played back 
and forth on the clouds, and he listened to 
the thunder which rumbled and crashed and 
echoed from hill to hill, and it seemed as if 
at times the very rocks were trembling. 
Then a steady roaring noise began, and 
Bruce wondered what it was, as it seemed 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 119 

to be approaching rapidly. It was a heavy 
rain moving eastward without any wind, 
and when the first big drops began to play 
on the tepee, Bruce slipped inside and care¬ 
fully closed the tepee flap behind him. 

Ray was sound asleep, and Ganawa, who 
had experienced many storms in a wild 
forest, also seemed to be asleep. But Bruce 
lay awake for some time listening to the play 
of the rain on the tepee and to its strange 
music on the river and in the trees, a music 
which people who always live in cities and 
white men’s houses never hear. Thus won¬ 
dering and half dreaming about the vast 
uninhabited region, the big trout in the pool, 
and the strange unknown man or beast 
which had made the dog so madly excited, 
Bruce also fell asleep. 

When Ray went to bed the dog had also 
curled up in his place and the two had been 
asleep now for several hours. To rain, 
thunder, and wind, Tawny paid no atten¬ 
tion; they were sounds that meant nothing 
to him. In the morning the wild forest ap- 


120 


THE GOLD ROCK 


peared in all its summer glory under a clear 
blue sky. White-throats were whistling, 
the song of the hermit-thrushes rang from 
the thickets with its peculiar ecstasy, and the 
bumblebees were at work among the white 
flowers of the wild raspberries. 

After the brush had dried off, the three 
campers went down to examine the trail be¬ 
low the big pool; but if there had been any 
tracks or marks, the heavy rain had obliter¬ 
ated them all. Tawny sniffed at the ground 
here and there, but found nothing to ex¬ 
cite him. However, he seemed to know 
what the investigation was about, for again 
and again he looked at his human com¬ 
panions with a funny quizzical expression, 
as if he would say: “ This is the place where 
he was last night. If you will just tell me 
where he is now, I will go after him.’’ 


CHAPTER XV, 


THE SMOKE-HOUSE 

“ I DO not know what made the dog mad,” 
said Ganawa, when they had returned from 
the pooh “ Perhaps he smelled a bear or 
a wolf, or a moose came to the river to drink. 
Some dogs do not know enough to leave a 
porcupine alone, and then they get mad 
when they smell one. Or it may be that 
the dog smelled an Indian, although I do 
not know why a good Indian should have 
run away when the dog came. If it had 
been a bear, I think the dog would have held 
him at bav and would have done much bark- 
ing, and a young bear would have climbed a 
tree. If it had been a moose, I think the 
dog would have followed his trail a long 
time, perhaps all night. So I think it was 
either a wolf or an Indian. One dog can¬ 
not fight a wolf, and an Indian might have 

gone down the river in a canoe. But now, 

121 


122 THE GOLD ROCK 

my sons, you must take care of the fish you 
caught/’ 

The trout had all been cleaned in the 
evening, and Bruce had laid them in a big 
basin of birch-bark and put just a very little 
salt on them. Bruce had taken along about 
a peck of salt, because he knew that it is 
hard for most white men to learn to like 
meat and fish without salt. The lads had 
planned to smoke the fish, so that they would 
keep indefinitely. Then they could take 
smoked fish on trips when they would have 
no time to hunt or fish, or when they would 
have no luck with hunting or fishing. 

The lads proceeded to smoke the fish in 
a way which any campers or fishermen may 
follow. It is a method which the Indians 
discovered long ago and it is well known to 
many white campers and hunters. 

Bruce drove some stout poles into the 
ground so they made a rectangle about three 
feet wide and six feet long. Then he tied 
two slender green poles to the uprights, one 
on each side of the rectangle. 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 123 

Ray quickly cut a number of thin green 
sticks and laid them crosswise on the poles 
which Bruce had tied to the uprights. 
When Ganawa saw what the lads had done, 
he said, “ My sons, you have made a good 
scaffold for smoking the fish.” 

“We shall make it better,” Bruce replied. 
“We shall make a little smoke-house, so they 
will be smoked more evenly than on an open 
scaffold. Go and get some large pieces of 
bark, Ray; any kind of bark you can find.” 

In a short time the lads had enclosed 
three sides of their smoke-house with pieces 
of birch-bark and other bark. Then Bruce 
dug a shallow trench in the ground, and in 
this he built a small fire of sticks and chips. 
As soon as this fire had a good start he cov¬ 
ered it with damp birch punk, rotting birch- 
wood, which he gathered from a dead birch 
that had been lying on the ground for several 
years. The wood had rotted to such an ex¬ 
tent, as birch on the ground always does, 
that one could have dug it out with a stout 
shovel. 


124 


THE GOLD ROCK 


The fish had all been split along the back, 
and Ray had carefully spread them out on 
the frame above the fire, from which a thick 
smoke now began to rise. 

“Say, Bruce,” exclaimed Ray, “ the thing 
begins to work like a smoke-house on a New 
England farm. I guess we won’t starve if 
we can catch enough fish or find game.” 

The lads now covered the top of their 
smoke-house with birch-bark, and partly 
closed the front with a piece of buckskin. 
After this they took turns watching the fire, 
taking care that there was always enough 
fire to make a good dense smoke. By this 
method, meat and fish are slowly cooked and 
cured in such a way that they will keep for a 
long time, even in warm weather, if they are 
protected from flies and other insects. 

Bruce and Ray smoked fish till dark, and 
then Bruce took the fish into the tepee and 
let the fire go out. 

“ A hungry bear might steal that whole 
business,” Bruce remarked. “ We must 
take no chances like that.” 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 125 


In the morning Bruce started the fire 
again, and about noon the fish were declared 
well smoked and cured. The outside felt 
hard and dry and the dark pink meat had 
been nicely browned. The fish not only 
looked but smelled appetizing, so that the 
lads were sorely tempted to eat a piece at 
once. 

Ganawa had made a birch-bark tub and 
in this the lads stored their smoked fish, and 
after carefully closing the tub with a piece 
of canvas, they hung the tub up in the tepee, 
for in this way the fish would keep indefi¬ 
nitely. 

They had now time to explore the coun¬ 
try several miles up the river, searching for 
indications of a white man’s camp or a cache 
of fur. 

‘‘ The cache or the camp,” said Ganawa, 
‘‘ will not be far from a lake or stream. It 
may be on a very small stream, but you need 
not look for it far from water. Both In¬ 
dians and white men never make a camp 
more than two or three hundred paces from 


126 


THE GOLD ROCK 


water, and at most camps the distance to 
water is much less.” 

For about a week the three campers de¬ 
voted their time to exploring the wild coun¬ 
try for some ten miles up-stream. Some¬ 
times all three went as one party, at other 
times Ganawa went in one direction and the 
two white boys went in another direction, 
but neither of the white boys ever went alone 
any great distance from camp, for Ganawa 
was always a little afraid that the lads might 
get lost. 

“ You must remember, my sons,” he told 
them, “ in what direction you went from the 
river and from the tepee. If you can find 
the river, you can find the tepee. If you 
get lost you must not be scared and begin 
to run, but you must camp, build a fire that 
will make a big smoke and then you must 
wait till I have time to find you.” 

On every trip they carried a piece of 
smoked fish, a small ax, steel, flint, and tin¬ 
der; and hooks and fish-lines. They also 
never went without Bruce’s small compass. 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 127 

About the use of the compass Ganawa had 
laughingly cautioned them on one point, 
saying: “ My sons, I have seen several white 
men get lost with their compass. The com¬ 
pass is wise and can always tell you where 
the north star is and where the sun is at 
noon, but it cannot tell you where your 
tepee is; so you must always remember in 
what direction and about how far you went 
from your tepee.” 

In this manner they examined every 
creek, lake, and pond that might have 
tempted trappers and traders to camp. 

- They found several places where at some 
time Indians had camped, but in all their 
search they discovered just one spot which 
Ganawa pronounced to have been a white 
man’s camp. It was close to the river at 
the mouth of a cold-spring stream. 

“ The men who camped here cut big 
wood and built a big fire,” explained 
Ganawa. “ Indians do not cut big wood 
and do not build a big fire. The dry bal¬ 
sam boughs of their bed show us that there 


128 


THE GOLD ROCK 


were two men, and they made camp about 
twelve moons ago after the balsam-trees had 
begun to make a new growth. They camped 
here more than one night, because they cut 
and burnt a good deal of wood.” 

Bruce and Ray tried hard to read more 
from the signs of the camp. In what direc¬ 
tion were the men travelling? With what 
object did they come to this wild part of the 
continent? The lads even looked with great 
care for some written message, but they 
found absolutely nothing to give them more 
information than Ganawa had read from the 
signs of the camp. 

“ I wish something would happen,” Ray 
said one evening as he and Bruce were re¬ 
turning tired and hungry from one of their 
fruitless exploring trips. “ It isn’t much fun 
to be eaten up by the black flies in the 
brush,” and a few days later something did 
happen. 


CHAPTER XVI 


A DOUBLE SURPRISE 

The thing happened on a fine quiet sum¬ 
mer afternoon. Ganawa and Ray were en¬ 
joying the fine weather near the tepee. 
Bruce had taken the canoe and the dog 
across the river and was sitting on a knoll 
from which he had a fine view of a short 
stretch of the river. He was thinking over 
the plan that Ganawa had proposed for the 
future. “We must either travel up the 
river,” Ganawa had said, “ or we must start 
off for another part of the country, perhaps 
to some big lake.” 

The whole plan seemed sort of bootless 

and headless to Bruce and he felt decidedly 

blue about the whole outlook. “We might 

as well,” he thought, “ hunt for a certain 

pebble somewhere on the shore of Lake 

Superior, as expect to find Jack Dutton or 

129 


130 


THE GOLD ROCK 


anybody else in this endless wilderness of a 
million lakes and streams and rivers and 
rocky hills. If anybody lived in this God¬ 
forsaken country, the black flies and mos¬ 
quitoes wouldn’t be so hungry. I think 
Jack and I were a couple of big . . 
and then the train of his thought was sud¬ 
denly broken by something he saw coming 
around the bend in the river. Bruce stood 
up to make sure he was not mistaken. No, 
there it was. An Indian in a small birch- 
bark canoe was paddling hard up-stream, 
and the fellow had a gun leaning in the bow 
of the canoe. He was close to the other 
shore, and would see Ganawa’s camp before 
Ganawa or Ray were likely to see him. 
Bruce knew that Ganawa expected no 
friendly visitor, in fact, he thought he recog¬ 
nized the Indian. Bruce was too far from 
camp to call to Ganawa. For a moment he 
did not know what to do, and then he did 
a desperate thing. He fired his gun and 
let out as wild a yell as he could utter. 

At the sound of the gun the Indian 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


131 


stopped, turned his canoe and paddled 
down-stream as fast as he could go. Bruce 
and Tawny did their best to follow along 
the bank, but as there was no trail on that 
side of the stream they could not keep up 
with the fleeing canoe. It was with some 
difficulty that Bruce restrained the dog from 
jumping into the swift current. Several 
times Bruce almost kicked the dog back into 
the brush. “ Get back, you fool dog,” he 
called. ‘‘You will go over the falls!” 
And while Bruce tried to keep the fleeing 
Indian in sight, he wondered if Ganawa and 
Ray had heard his shot and his yell, and 
he felt much provoked that they did not turn 
out to capture the fellow when he had to land 
above the falls. 

Only once the fleeing Indian looked 
around and Bruce yelled in Chippewa: 
“ Stop 1 Stop! Get him, Ganawa! ” And 
again he had to restrain the madly barking 
dog from jumping into the treacherous 
smooth current just above the falls. 

And then Bruce felt as if his heart was 


132 


THE GOLD ROCK 


going to stop beating. That Indian was 
losing control of his canoe. He was strain¬ 
ing every muscle to land on the left bank; 
but, as if pulled by invisible hands, that 
canoe was drawn to the right and was ap¬ 
proaching that terrible narrow chute, which 
is the beginning of the roaring falls. For a 
brief half minute Bruce watched the strug¬ 
gle between the man and the river. But 
just as Bruce expected the man and the 
canoe to be drawn into the chute, the Indian 
stood up, dropped his paddle and, with a 
mighty effort, sprang to a rock at the very 
head of the chute. He barely clung to the 
rock with hands and feet, but the recoil of 
his spring pushed the canoe into the chute, 
where a second or two it seemed to stand on 
its head, and then it disappeared. For a 
moment it looked as if the Indian was hurt 
and would not be able to move; but he re¬ 
covered quickly, bounded over the rocks, and 
ran down the steep trail to the Big Pool. 

Bruce walked back swiftly to the place 
where he had left the canoe and crossed over 





He barely clung to the rock with hands and feet. 

Page 132. 


Ml 











OF THE CHIPPEWA 


133 


to the camp. “ I bet/’ he thought, “ Ray 
and Ganawa are both asleep in the tepee.” 
But he was mistaken; the two had gone fish¬ 
ing to the mouth of a small creek. Bruce 
at once followed them and found them about 
a mile up-stream. When Ganawa heard 
what had happened his eyes flashed, he 
dropped his pole and said, “We must go 
and follow the man’s trail.” 

On the way to camp he asked a number 
of questions of Bruce. “ How did the In¬ 
dian look? What did he wear? Did he 
have a gun? ” 

“ He was short and squatty,” Bruce told. 
“ He wore his hair sort of half-long, not in 
a braid. I did not get a good look at his 
face, but when he looked around I thought 
he looked like a bad man, but I thought he 
also looked scared. 

“ I was surprised to see him jump out of 
the canoe. He missed the rock with his 
feet, but clung to it with his hands. He 
wore moccasins, leggings, and a hunting- 
shirt of buckskin.” 


134 


THE GOLD ROCK 


“ Did he have a gun? ’’ Ganawa repeated 
somewhat eagerly. 

“ Yes, he had a gun,” Bruce asserted. 
“ It was leaning in the bow of the boat, but 
he jumped for the rock without it, and the 
gun went over the falls with the canoe.” 

“We must follow him,” repeated Ganawa. 
“ If he had been a friend, he would not have 
run away. He was a man who had some 
evil in his heart. You must take Ohne- 
moosh, but you must tie a rope to him so 
he cannot run away from us and make a 
big noise with barking and tell the man that 
we are coming.” 

On the way down the steep trail to the Big 
Pool, Ganawa pointed to some tracks and 
whispered, “ Wet moccasins,” and when 
Tawny smelled at the tracks his hair bristled 
and he tried hard to break away from Ray. 

If the lads had expected to find the In¬ 
dian at the Big Pool, they were disap¬ 
pointed. Several pieces of the canoe were 
travelling round and round in the pool, and 
Ray caught a cedar-wood paddle, but of the 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 135 

gun they found no trace. They followed 
the trail past the two miles of the rapids 
below the pool with the dog eagerly leading 
and straining at the rope, but a few rods 
below the rapids where the water flows along 
placidly, carrying patches of foam on its 
surface, the dog lost the trail. 

Ray led him back several times and then 
released him so he could range as he pleased, 
but it was all in vain; the trail either ended 
suddenly or, for some reason, the dog could 
not follow it any farther. 

The three sat down to think it over. The 
dog also sat down and with a puzzled whine 
looked at his human friends as if to say: “ I 
don’t know what this means. Can’t you tell 
me? ” 

And then Ganawa arose and said: “ My 
sons, I can tell you why the dog can¬ 
not follow the trail beyond this point. The 
man stopped here, jumped into the river and 
swam across. It is good that he lost his 
gun, for we know now that he cannot come 
back and harm us during the night. We 


136 THE GOLD ROCK 

should not follow him across the stream. It 
may be that he will never come back, for he 
knows that his gun is lost and that his canoe 
was broken where the river leaps over the big 
steps of the rocks to the whirling pool. And 
now we must return to our camp, for we 
have not tasted food since this morning, and 
we are all very hungry.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


INTO THE UNKNOWN 

After the evening meal, the two lads 
built a big camp-fire of green birch logs, 
mixed with such dry sticks as they could 
find, so as to make a ruddy blazing fire, 
which grew so hot that both men and dog 
had to back away from it. Ganawa smiled 
as he watched the lads pile on wood and 
then back off. 

“ White men do strange things,” he said 
laughing. “ Here, my sons, you have been 
working hard at cutting wood, and now you 
have built a big fire, which is so hot that we 
all have to back away from it. Why did 
you not build a small fire and sit close to it? ” 

The lads looked at each other, but neither 

of them had a good answer. “ I suppose, 

my father,” Bruce replied after a moment 

of silence, ‘‘ white men just like to see a big 

fire, and most white boys would rather cut 

137 


138 


THE GOLD ROCK 


and gather much wood and watch a big 
camp-fire than sit close to a small fire.” 

The lads had expected that Ganawa would 
talk about the man who had almost gone 
over the falls and whose trail had abruptly 
ended below the rapids, but after his remarks 
about the camp-fire of the boys, the tall lean 
hunter lapsed into silence. He sat motion¬ 
less looking at the fire or gazing into the 
black darkness which surrounds every camp¬ 
fire at night. The lads had learned that it 
was useless to try to make him talk when 
he had fallen into this mood. “ There will 
be no talk,” Ray had remarked some days 
ago, “ when Ganawa starts looking at the 
fire without batting an eye.” 

One who is used to the noisy summer 
evenings of more southern regions where 
crickets, locusts, katydids, and tree-frogs 
open their noisy nocturnal concert as soon as 
the red orb of the sun has sunk below the 
horizon cannot help being strongly im¬ 
pressed by the solemn mysterious silence of 
the Great Wild North. 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 139 


As the fire began to burn low, Ray went 
into the tepee and brought a blanket for 
each man, for as usual in the north the night 
was growing cool. After each man had 
wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, 
they sat again in silence. There was the 
murmuring and rippling of the river, for 
like all rivers that drop into the north shore 
of the Big Lake, the Michipicoten runs al¬ 
most everywhere with a swift current. 
These cool, clear northern streams live, and 
they sing as they run. Crickets and tree- 
frogs are not found in the North Shore 
country, but the night-hawks flew screaming 
over the glowing fire, a lone whippoorwill 
called near the stream; from a large pine 
behind the camp came the spooky call 
and the guttural notes of “ kookookehaw,” 
the big owl; and from the hill across 
the river came the long-drawn howl of a 
wolf. 

Next morning Ganawa told the lads to 
make breakfast and roll up the tepee. “ We 
move after we have eaten,’’ he added. “ I 


140 THE GOLD ROCK 

ffo down and watch a while for the man who 
ran away.” 

Tawny wanted very much to go along, but 
Ganawa would not let him. “ Ohnemoosh,” 
he said, “ you stay in camp. I go alone with 
my gun and watch for him.” 

Ganawa might have been gone an hour or 
two hours. To Ray it seemed two hours, 
and he was just about to go and look for 
the hunter when the tall red man came strid¬ 
ing back into camp. 

“ I did not see him,” he told the lads, 
“ and I do not think he is coming back to 
follow us, because he has lost his gun, and 
it is hard for a poor Indian to buy a new 
gun. But we shall go away now on a long 
journey to some big lakes and many streams 
to the north and northeast of our camp. 
The lakes are large, they lie in the rocks in 
the forest and many little streams run into 
them, and the beaver people build their 
dams and houses on these little rivers, and 
they also build houses on many small lakes, 
which no hunter has ever found; for this 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 141 


is the country which the Great Spirit has 
made to be a refuge for the beaver people 
and the moose. In this country the hunters 
shall never kill the last beaver and the last 
moose, because the animals can always find 
a trail that leads them to a safe place.” 

“ My father,” asked Bruce, “ shall we 
stop looking for the camp of my friend 
while we go to explore many lakes and 
streams? ” 

“ My son,” replied Ganawa, “ we shall al¬ 
ways be looking for the camp of your friend 
and for signs that tell us where he may 
have gone; and if we do not find him and 
find no signs of his camp, then, maybe, we 
shall have to go back and tell our friends 
that the wilderness has swallowed the white 
man.” 

Bruce and Ray wanted very much to 
know if Ganawa knew who was the man 
that had followed them, but on this subject 
Ganawa did not utter a word and the lads 
knew it would be useless to ask him. He 
talked of moose and caribou they might find 


142 


THE GOLD ROCK 


in the country ahead, of many big lakes, 
some of which he had never seen himself; 
but the strange Indian, who had fled from 
them as if driven by an evil conscience, he 
seemed to have forgotten. 

“We must look for moose,” Ganawa told 
the boys when they entered the narrow bay 
of a large lake one morning. “ My sons are 
getting thin from eating nothing but fish.” 

Ray’s heart began to thump when half an 
hour later Ganawa pointed toward the north 
shore of the lake and called in a low voice, 
“ Moose! ” and began to steer the canoe so 
as to approach the animal without alarming 
him. 

“ He is too big,” said Ganawa when they 
had approached within gunshot. But now 
the moose, a big bull with antlers in the vel¬ 
vet, became suspicious. He left the shal¬ 
low water, in which he had been feeding on 
aquatic plants, and circled around far 
enough so he could get the wind of the 
hunters. Then he stepped out of the spruce 
forest, gazed at the hunters and sniffed the 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 143 


wind, and Ray thought he saw him shake his 
head. Then he disappeared among the big 
black spruces which grow around the shallow 
bays of almost every northern lake. 

“ Let him go,” said Ganawa. “ He is 
old and poor. Did you see his ribs? The 
black flies and the deer-flies and the big bull- 
dog-flies have worried him, and he needs 
much food to make his big horns grow. We 
must try to get a young moose.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


REAL TROUBLE 

It was now midsummer and Bruce and 
Ray learned something which even, to this 
day few eastern people seem really to know. 
They became more acquainted every day 
with two terrible pests of the North Coun¬ 
try, two pests which make some parts of 
North America practically uninhabitable 
during the time these pests are at their 
worst. During this time even the Indians, 
who are not thin-skinned when it comes to 
enduring mosquitoes and black flies, keep 
out of the worst infested regions. 

Mosquitoes breed in shallow stagnant 

water, where small fish and minnows cannot 

destroy their larvse, the wrigglers; while 

black flies breed in rapidly running water. 

As the three friends travelled northward, 

Ganawa was careful to select camp-sites that 

144 


THE GOLD ROCK 


145 


were not near shallow warm bays but were 
exposed to such breezes as might be blowing. 

Mosquitoes are weak fliers, and do not 
venture out in a good breeze, nor do they 
like hot sunlight, but on warm muggy days 
and during fairly warm nights, they are a 
fearful pest to both man and beast and to 
some extent even to young birds in the nest. 
At several camping-places, although Gan- 
awa had chosen the best sites within reach, 
the mosquitoes were so bad that immediately 
after sunset the travellers had to withdraw 
into their tepee, in which they kept a smudge 
going, so the mosquitoes would not come in 
through the opening at the top. On warm 
nights there were, however, always some 
mosquitoes in the tepee. Ganawa pro¬ 
tected himself against these by sleeping, In¬ 
dian fashion, with his head under the blanket, 
but the white boys spent several bad nights 
before they could get used to this way of 
sleeping. 

When the lads asked Ganawa where mos¬ 
quitoes and black flies were during winter, 


146 


THE GOLD ROCK 


their guide looked puzzled and admitted that 
he did not know. “ The Indians do not 
know,” he said, “ where the little biters go 
when the frost comes. It may be that a 
bad spirit makes them every summer.” 

If the mosquitoes caused the boys to spend 
several miserable nights, the black flies an¬ 
noyed them much during the day. When¬ 
ever they had to make a portage, or when 
they explored a brush-covered region, these 
little pests attacked their faces and hands. 
Many people do not at once feel the bite of 
a black fly, but the insect leaves a puncture 
from which the blood will run, and on sev¬ 
eral days Ray and Bruce looked as if they 
had been in a big fight. 

During the next few days, the travellers 
saw many moose, but they were all so poor 
that the lads claimed to be able to count 
their ribs. Nearly all the moose they saw 
were in the water and Ganawa explained to 
them that they feed on plants in the bottom 
of the lakes only on warm days when the 
flies are bad. “ On cool days,” he told the 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 147 

lads, “ they eat brush, and they eat brush 
during the winter/’ On one short explor¬ 
ing trip Ray suddenly let out a yell as if 
he had stepped on a rattlesnake. Then he 
rushed away brushing his ears and face with 
his hands. “ Don’t go there! ” he called to 
his friends; ‘‘ a moose has been lying down 
there and he has left a million black flies.” 

These were hard days and weeks for Ray 
and Bruce; they both lost much weight and 
grew almost as thin as the moose they saw 
in the lakes. 

The months of June and July are what 
woodsmen call the “ fly season ” in the 
country of the Great Lakes and the Upper 
Mississippi. But this is also the time when 
the birds sing and the early flowers are in 
bloom and when the fish bite most actively. 
By the first of August, the beautiful fire- 
weeds are still in bloom, but the birds are 
silent and the fish are more sluggish. By 
this time the lake trout, for instance, have 
retired into deep water, where it is difficult 
to catch them. 


148 


THE GOLD ROCK 


However, with modern protection against 
flies and mosquitoes no boy or man need 
fear to go into the North Woods in June 
and July. And the one condition on which 
he must not fail is complete and absolute 
protection from mosquitoes at night. Flies 
and mosquitoes may worry a man in the day¬ 
time, he may get much heated on a long 
march, or he may fall into cold water, but 
if he can have a good sleep at night, a man 
in good health can laugh at all hardships. 

And here is the way to do it, the recipe, 
so to speak, for happy camping. If you are 
going to live in a cabin, take with you a 
small screen tent, bobbinet is best, to put 
over your bed or bunk. If you are going 
to live in a tent, that tent must be absolutely 
mosquito-proof, which means that it must 
have a sod cloth all around the bottom and 
that the opening must be protected by a 
double piece of mosquito-netting or by a 
piece of good bobbinet. The mosquito¬ 
netting or the bobbinet is sewed to one flap 
and is pinned to the other flap with safety- 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 149 


pins. If a hole is left one inch square, the 
tent will fill up with mosquitoes and make 
sleep impossible. 

Some mosquitoes will always find their 
way into the tent. Every one of these must 
be killed before the campers try to sleep. 
They should be burnt with a candle as they 
are found sitting in the tent. With reason¬ 
able care, canvas and bobbinet will not catch 
fire in this process, but a lighted candle must 
not be brought in contact with the ordinary 
mosquito-netting or with cheese-cloth. A 
person who fights mosquitoes at night does 
not know the A B C of camping. 

There are other pests in the woods in early 
summer: wood-ticks, horse-flies, deer-flies, 
and once the writer was besieged in his cabin 
for a whole day by the common barn-fly. 
There are also the little “ no-see-’ems,” but 
they never last long. The arch-demon in the 
whole list of abominations is the mosquito; 
the female mosquito. Mosquitoes come early 
in the season, stay late, and work day and 
night. 


150 


THE GOLD ROCK 


One is sometimes asked about the danger 
from snakes and wild animals in the North 
Woods. There are no poisonous snakes in 
the North Woods. The most dangerous 
wild creature in summer is the mosquito, and 
the only good mosquito is a dead mosquito. 
There is one thing that may be even worse 
than mosquitoes, and that is the tooth¬ 
ache; therefore, every wise camper sees his 
dentist before he leaves town. 

It is now fitting that we should again 
take up the thread of our story. 


CHAPTER XIX 


ON WILD LAKES 

On a lake, which is now called Whitefish 
Lake, the travellers secured the young moose 
they had been looking for, and here they 
stopped a few days to smoke and dry the 
meat and to rest. Until now they had been 
living on fresh and smoked fish and on rab¬ 
bits. 

Ganawa then told the lads that they would 

now travel northward. An old Indian at 

Michipicoten Bay had told him that two 

white men had gone northward to look for 

gold rock on a high cliff on one of the big 

lakes. He thought it was Oba Lake. Now 

Ganawa wanted to try to find the white men 

and the gold rock and he also wished to see 

several big lakes on which his father once 

made a great hunting trip, but which 

Ganawa had never seen. His white sons 

could now go with him, he said. He did 

151 


152 


THE GOLD ROCK 


not have to provide any longer for his In¬ 
dian sons and daughters, and so he wished 
to see these big lakes before he was too old 
to go on long hard journeys. 

It was the middle of July when they 
reached Lake Manitowik. From this lake 
they portaged to Dog Lake, and from Dog 
Lake they crossed a mile overland to Lake 
W abatongushi. 

Whitefish Lake and Manitowik Lake are 
narrow lakes with simple shore-lines which 
run from southwest to northeast; but on the 
other two lakes the lads felt completely lost. 
They passed an endless number of bays and 
not a few islands, and several nights they 
camped on an island where they were en¬ 
tirely free from mosquitoes. 

“ Bruce, I think we are pretty close to 
Hudson Bay,” remarked Ray when they 
had been several days travelling along the 
west shore of Wabatongushi. “ It is right 
that this lake should have a long name, be¬ 
cause it is so long that I think we shall 
never reach the end of it. 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


153 


‘‘We shall never find Jack Dutton, 
Bruce. This country is so big that you 
might as well tell me to find a carpet-tack 
you lost in Vermont as to expect to find 
Jack Dutton. I wonder if Ganawa knows 
where we are. Pretty soon it will be win¬ 
ter and then we shall freeze to death in our 
tepee.” 

As they travelled along under the lee of 
the west shore where the water was quiet, 
they saw the whitecaps breaking on the east 
shore, although the lake is in most places 
less than a mile wide, but it is about twenty 
miles long and runs straight north and 
south. 

While they were travelling northward, 
they were constantly looking for a camp or 
signs of a camp, but the whole country 
seemed an endless wilderness, uninhabited 
by either Indians or white men. They dis¬ 
covered several old camp-sites of Indians, 
but only one where white men had camped 
on the northwest bay of the lake. 

“ Look, my sons,” said Ganawa. “ It 


154 


THE GOLD ROCK 


was a white men’s camp. They built a big 
fire and let it run up the hills and it killed 
all the pines and other trees, but we shall 
go up there and look for gold rock.” 

If the lads had thought that looking for 
gold rock, which is now called prospecting, 
was easy, they learned something new. 
Ganawa led them up a steep rocky hill 
where hundreds of dead trees lay in all di¬ 
rections, and where birches and pin-cherry 
bushes had begun to cover the destruction 
wrought by the fire. At last Ganawa 
stopped on the top of a ridge over a vein 
of white quartz about a foot wide. “ This 
should be the gold rock,” he said. “ It looks 
as my father and a white man described it 
to me; but I cannot see the gold.” 

They followed the vein over the hill until 
it was lost in some green timber in the val¬ 
ley beyond, then they returned to the bay 
and made camp for the night. 

Next morning Ganawa sat a long time 
thinking, then he rose up and pointed to the 
northwest. ‘‘ My sons,” he said, “ there is 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 155 


another large lake, Oba Lake, in the direc¬ 
tion of the setting sun, and if you are not 
tired of travelling with me, we shall go 
there, but there is no portage trail to it and 
it is more than a league away. There are 
many beavers on the streams that run into 
that lake and your friend may be on that 
lake, but I do not know if we shall find any 
gold rock near its shore.” 

‘‘ My father,” replied Bruce, “ if you 
think our friend might be on that lake, we 
should go there and look for him. We 
might build a raft and leave our canoe at 
this place.” 

“ My son,” Ganawa answered, “ it is much 
hard work to build a raft on which three 
men can travel and, when you have built it, 
you will find it hard to travel on it, because 
it travels very slowly and you cannot steer 
it against the wind. And sometimes your 
raft will float to-day, but to-morrow it will 
sink, because the logs have sucked up much 
water during the night. If we go we must 
carry our canoe across the hills to the lake. 


156 


THE GOLD ROCK 


We can leave our tepee here and take only 
our blankets and some dried meat.” 

So they tied their blankets and provisions 
in the canoe and started out. Ganawa and 
Bruce carried the canoe while Ray was told 
to walk behind and mark the trail, which he 
did by blazing some trees and breaking the 
tops of some brush. 

“ It will be much easier for us to return 
over a blazed trail,” said Ganawa, “ and we 
shall be sure to strike the place where we 
left our tepee and other things.” 

Ganawa held a northwesterly course, di¬ 
recting himself by the sun. “ We cannot 
miss the lake,” he remarked, “ because it is 
six leagues long.” 

As Ray worked along, blazing more trees 
and breaking more brush than was neces¬ 
sary, he had the feeling that they were all 
hopelessly lost in a trackless wilderness. 
“ We shall never find Jack Dutton in a hun¬ 
dred years,” he thought. “ I wish I were 
back home in Vermont. I could never find 
my way back to the Big Lake, and I don’t 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


157 


believe Ganawa knows where we are. We 
have passed a thousand bays and I can’t tell 
one from the other.” 

They might have been travelling three 
hours when Bruce gave a shout, and he and 
Ganawa set the canoe down for a rest, as 
they had done many times. 

“ What have you found? ” called Ray and 
ran over to see. 

“ Look ahead,” answered Bruce, “ and 
see.” Before the travellers lay spread out a 
most beautiful sheet of blue water, for the 
sky was clear and the wind had not yet 
sprung up, as it nearly always does in the 
middle of the forenoon. 

“ But there are no big hills around the 
lake as there are around Lake George and 
Lake Champlain back home,” remarked 
Ray. “ It is all just a wild country, not a 
soul living in it. I wish we were home, 
Bruce.” 

The country of Dog Lake, Wabaton- 
gushi, and Oba Lake is still nearly as wild 
as in the days of our story. A few Indians, 


158 


THE GOLD ROCK 


trappers, miners, lumbermen, and railroad 
men now live in the country, but it is still a 
great playground of lakes and forests, al¬ 
though fire has ruined much of the fine 
green timber. All three of the lakes may be 
reached by rail, and any one who wishes to 
do so may follow the trail of Ganawa and 
his white sons. 


CHAPTER XX 


FARTHEST NORTH 

Ganawa quickly built a brush lean-to in 
a place where the campers had a fine view 
of the lake. There were no mosquitoes and 
black flies at this camp, and after a good 
meal of smoked moose meat and sweet tea, 
Ray rolled up in his blanket and slept all 
afternoon with Tawny curled up at his feet. 

The tea and sugar had been a treat; for 
the supply of both was so limited that they 
could use these luxuries only on special 
occasions when they felt that they had de¬ 
served some kind of a feast. Any one who 
has helped to carry a canoe three miles 
across “ the bush,” as present-day woodsmen 
call this kind of country, will admit that he 
has earned a treat of some sort. 

Bruce and Ganawa felt no more inclined 

to further exertion than Ray, so they sat 

159 


160 


THE GOLD ROCK 


in the shade, enjoying the gentle westerly 
breeze and the beautiful panorama of blue 
water and dark green forest spread out be¬ 
fore them. 

There was very little talk, for each was 
busy with his own thoughts. Bruce shared 
to some extent the fatigue and discourage¬ 
ment of Ray. He also had a feeling that 
they had, so to speak, come to the ends of 
the earth without finding as much as a real 
clue to the whereabouts of Jack Dutton. 
“ I reckon I shall never see my old friend 
again,” he thought. “ I have a feeling that 
he is dead. Death and danger lurk every¬ 
where. One may drown in a storm or in 
some wild rapids or waterfall almost any 
day, he may freeze to death, and unless he 
is a good hunter and fisherman, he might in 
winter even starve to death; and in summer 
the terrible pests of mosquitoes and black 
flies might almost kill a man or drive him 
crazy. Thank God, there are none of the 
pests at this camp! ” And then Bruce 
spread his blanket on a bed of lichens and 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 161 

moss that covered the rock, and very soon 
he was as sound asleep as Ray. 

The next thing he knew Ganawa was 
gently shaking him and saying; “ Wake up, 
my son. I have caught a mess of trout in 
a small stream and it is time that you build 
a fire and broil them for our evening meal, 
for the sun will soon sink behind the forest.” 

The white lads ate their trout with a little 
salt, but Ganawa ate them just as they came 
off the green willow sticks without salt. 
‘‘ The Indians cannot get salt in this coun¬ 
try,” he said, “ unless they buy it of the 
traders, so we often eat our meat and fish 
without salt as our fathers did, before the 
white traders came to our country.” 

After a long nap and a good supper, the 
lads felt more cheerful. For a while they 
sat and watched the most gorgeous sunset 
they had ever seen. The western sky was 
covered with scattered clouds, which the sun 
painted at first with a golden orange which 
gradually changed to an indescribable red, 
such as one sees only in the great wild 


162 


THE GOLD ROCK 


forests, where no smoke and dust fill the air. 
“ It may rain to-night,” said Ganawa ris¬ 
ing and looking at some dark low clouds in 
the west. “ My sons, we must make our 
shelter larger and put more boughs on the 
roof.” 

Then for half an hour the three worked 
diligently on their lean-to, Bruce and Ray 
cut and carried long boughs of balsam, and 
Ganawa laid them in place like shingles and 
tied them with strips of willow bark. 

When it grew too dark to work, the lads 
built a camp-fire of driftwood and for an 
hour or longer they all sat enjoying its 
gentle warmth and listening to the voices of 
the forest. Some night-hawks were scream¬ 
ing overhead as they hunted for flying in¬ 
sects over the lake. A bat circled back and 
forth near the fire and now and then uttered 
its faint high-pitched squeak. From across 
the lake came the call of wolves, and kookoo- 
kehaw, the big owl, made Ray’s hair stand 
up when he suddenly uttered his unearthly 
hoot and deep guttural notes almost above 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 163 


the camp-fire, as if he were protesting 
against the invasion of his realm. These 
sounds, however, were not unknown to the 
lads, but there came a new sound which 
brought Ray to his feet. 

“Listen!” he called. “There is some¬ 
body coming. They are throwing rocks in 
the lake and slamming the water with a 
paddle. Let us get away. They may shoot 
at us if we stay near the fire. I’ll throw 
some water on the fire.” 

“ Stop, my son,” Ganawa spoke. “ They 
are not going to attack us. They are the 
beaver people and they are making signals 
to their friends. The wind has changed and 
their keen noses have caught the man scent. 
They do hit the water with paddles, but 
their tails are the paddles, and then they dive 
with a plunge which makes a noise, as if a 
man threw a rock into the water.” 

It did rain during the night, but the 
thatch of boughs had been so well built that 
no rain fell on the sleepers; in fact Ray did 
not know it had been raining until he saw 


164 THE GOLD ROCK 

little pools of water on the rocks next morn¬ 
ing. 

On an ideal summer day the three pad- 
died slowly northward to the outlet of the 
lake without seeing a sign of other human 
beings, except a few old Indian camp-sites, 
as indicated by the usual tepee-poles. At 
the outlet they spent a day exploring the 
region. Bruce and Ray each climbed a 
tall tree from which they could look miles 
away to the north. The rough rocky hills 
had disappeared, and as far as their eyes 
could see the country seemed to be one great 
monotonous level forest of black spruce, the 
pulpwood trees of the present time. 

“ My sons,” said Ganawa, “ I believe this 
little Oba River joins the big river Missi- 
naibi far to the north. My father and I 
once travelled to the English traders on 
Hudson Bay by way of the Missinaibi. It 
is a bad river with many falls and rapids, 
and it took us all summer to make the jour¬ 
ney. Your brother is not camping on this 
lake and I have seen no white streaks of 


165 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 

gold rock. To-morrow we start back for 
the Michipicoten and look for your brother 
and the gold rock in other places.” 

The lads were glad to hear these words, 
for, although after plenty of rest and sleep, 
they had lost the feeling of fatigue and dis¬ 
couragement, they still felt as if they might 
travel on and on forever and never get out 
of the level black spruce forest where one 
tree looked like another, and where even the 
small brown creeks wound about as if they 
were lost in an endless monotony of trees, 
and thick soft knolls and patches of moss and 
Labrador tea without a piece of solid ground 
anywhere for miles and miles. 


CHAPTER XXI 


WILD FRUIT 

After a swim in the clear water of Oba 
Lake the travellers turned their canoe to the 
south. 

“ I am glad we are going home,” re¬ 
marked Ray. “ The black spruce forest 
looked so big and so much the same every« 
where I just could not help feeling that we 
should get lost if we ever went into it.” 

Bruce smiled at Ray’s mention of home. 
“ We are very far from home, my boy,” he 
answered with a sad smile. “ I sometimes 
think that we shall never see our Vermont 
hills again. It seems to me that we have 
been gone for years and that we have just 
turned around at the end of the world.” 

“ Oh, I didn’t mean home in Vermont,” 

replied Ray. “ I meant the country along 

the Michipicoten River. I just felt home- 

166 


THE GOLD ROCK 


167 


sick for that country when I saw the endless 
spruce forest north of this lake.” 

Both lads were surprised when in about 
four hours of easy paddling they had skirted 
the west shore of the lake and had also 
crossed the lake back to their carrying-place 
or portage on the east shore, where their 
lean-to was still standing just as they had 
left it. 

“ Bruce, I wonder if Ganawa would stay 
here over night,” asked Ray. “ I like this 
camp very much and we could have another 
camp-fire of driftwood. It is lots of fun to 
make a fire when you don’t have to cut a lot 
of wood.” 

Ganawa was quite willing that they should 
spend another night at this fine camp. “ I 
have now travelled on the blue lake that I 
have wished to see for a long time. We can 
travel back slowly, but we shall still make 
good time, because we know where we are 
going and we do not need to stop to look 
for signs of your brother. My little son 
may play or fish at this camp till evening.” 


168 


THE GOLD ROCK 


Ray first took a swim in the warm water 
in a cove with a sandy bottom. Then he 
picked a kettleful of berries; raspberries, 
pin-cherries, and blueberries all mixed. It 
was noAV past the middle of July and all the 
North Woods berries seemed to be ripe at 
the same time. There was another berry 
which hung in beautiful red bunches on the 
bushes, but they were tasteless and Ganawa 
said that the Great Spirit had made them 
for the wild birds, and the lads observed that 
about every kind of bird in the woods was 
feeding on them. They were the red berries 
of the elder, which in the latitude of Central 
Minnesota are ripe early in June, but in the 
region north and northeast of Lake Superior 
summer comes about six weeks later, thus 
crowding all wild fruit into a much shorter 
season. 

Ray did not care to play all by himself 
and he did not feel like sleeping so he asked 
Ganawa to show him some Indian wood¬ 
craft, and Ganawa showed him the willow, 
whose bark the Indians use for strings. “ It 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 169 

is a tall bushy willow,’’ he said, “ and it grows 
almost everywhere. The Indians also use 
the inner bark of basswoods and white elms 
for strings, but these trees do not grow here. 
However, I know that we can find a few 
elms on the Michipicoten.” 

All native willows have a tough string]^^ 
bark, but the common pussy willow, Salix 
discolor, furnishes very good strings. All 
these bark strings are tough and flexible 
only while green or wet. Even present-day 
Indians always keep a supply of these bark 
strings on hand. All of them are brittle 
and useless when dry, but they regain their 
toughness and flexibility when they are 
soaked in water for a short time. 

Then Ganawa showed Ray how the leaves 
of the low, white-flowered bush called Lab¬ 
rador tea might be used to take the place 
of the tea sold by the traders. ‘‘ This 
plant,” he explained, “ and a plant which 
the white people call sweet fern, make a 
good tea in camp if you have some sugar. 
The sweet fern does not grow here, but it 


170 


THE GOLD ROCK 


covers much sandy land south of Lake 
Superior.” 

The Labrador tea grows in every northern 
swamp, but the sweet fern the Indians often 
tie in bundles and take with them as they 
travel about to their favorite summer camp- 
ing-places for picking blueberries or gather¬ 
ing wild rice. 

The lads were surprised at the progress 
they could make now that they no longer 
paddled into every cove and wasted no time 
examining old camp-sites. Three days of 
easy travel brought them to a high and level 
camping ground, where a railroad now 
crosses the Michipicoten River. 

“ My sons,” spoke Ganawa, when thej^ 
reached this spot, “ at this place we should 
camp and make a store of food. For it 
may be that we shall have to spend a winter 
in this country, and you, my sons, will often 
wish that you had some of the berries that 
are now ripe in the woods, so you could eat 
them with your meat and fish. 

“ To-morrow you must each take a basket 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 171 

of birch-bark and pick blueberries, which you 
will find in the hills and under the pines, 
where the sun shines through the branches/' 

Blueberries were so abundant that each 
lad could pick about a bushel in a day, be¬ 
cause they found many patches where the 
ground was literally blue. 

While the boys were away gathering this 
wild fruit, the best in the whole of North 
America, Ganawa sewed together several 
large pieces of birch-bark and spread the 
whole in a sunny open place. On this birch- 
bark the lads emptied their filled baskets. 
Ganawa stayed in camp and with an im¬ 
provised wooden rake he stirred and turned 
the berries from time to time so they would 
dry faster. 

“ It may start to rain,” he remarked, 
“ and then our berries might spoil before we 
can dry them.” 

When the lads went out picking berries 
on the third day, Ray had grown a little bit 
tired of harvesting berries, and near the top 
of a ridge he lay down and fell asleep and 


172 


THE GOLD ROCK 


Tawny lay down near him. The lad was 
awakened from a sound sleep by a loud 
barking and a strange growling noise, and 
when he sat up and opened his eyes, a big 
black bear was coming straight for him, 
while Tawny was madly barking at the ani¬ 
mal but was afraid to close with so large 
a beast. For a moment the bear seemed in 
doubt whether he should cuff the dog or 
punish the being whom he had smelled up 
the wind and who had suddenly risen up be¬ 
fore him. And when he walked toward the 
dazed lad, and arose on his hind legs and 
uttered a vicious growl, Ray’s nerves gave 
away. He ran for the camp as fast as he 
could go, and when he reached it he was 
ready to drop and so out of breath that he 
could utter only a few words: “A—bear! 
He chased me! Run with the gun. Father. 
He—^he’s killed my dog.” 




BIG BLACK BEAR WAS COMING STRAIGHT FOR HIM 

Page 172. 



CHAPTER XXII 


ON A NEW TACK 

As soon as Ray had recovered from his 
fright he seized his gun and ran after 
Ganawa. He wondered why Ganawa had 
not fired, but now he saw the Indian point 
to a tall pine, from which two bear cubs 
were coming down, just as a boy comes down 
out of a tree, feet first. 

“ There, my son,” said Ganawa, “ you 
see why the bear attacked you and the dog. 
She was afraid you would harm her cubs. 
You must never kill a mother animal that 
has young. We must not harm these bears. 
We do not need the meat, and killing them 
would bring us bad luck.” 

It took fully a week before the berries 

were dry enough so they could be kept in 

two large birch-bark tubs, which Ganawa 

had made, and which each held about half 

a bushel, although the lads were sure they 

173 


174 


THE GOLD ROCK 


had picked at least four bushels. Blue¬ 
berries hold their moisture with a wonder¬ 
ful tenacity. Ripe berries will remain fresh 
and plump on the vines for about two weeks, 
and even after they have been picked it takes 
much time and patience to dry them; but 
after they are well dried, they will keep all 
winter. Blueberries and wild rice and maple 
sugar were the only wild vegetable foods 
which the Indians of the Great Lakes region 
could gather in large quantities. 

“ My sons,” said Ganawa in the evening, 
when all the berries had been dried, “ we 
must decide what we shall do. If you, my 
sons, are very homesick for your own people, 
then you should not stay with me through 
the winter for we may never find your 
friend, even if we search for him again after 
winter has passed.” 

Ganawa was silent, but Bruce saw that he 
expected an answer, and Bruce replied 
frankly, saying: “ My father, it is true that 
your white sons were homesick when we 
travelled far north to the great level spruce 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 175 


forest. At that time we were very tired, be¬ 
cause the mosquitoes and black flies had wor¬ 
ried us so much, the black flies during the 
day and the mosquitoes during the night. 
But now the nights are cool and the hungry 
flies and mosquitoes are gone. We are no 
longer tired and homesick, we are strong 
and we wish to stay with our father as long 
as he will keep us and search for our lost 
friend.” 

Ganawa sat in silence for some time, his 
eyes fastened on the hills down-stream as 
if he were trying to look into the future. 
“ My sons,” he said at last, “ we have 
searched the big lakes to the north of this 
river. There is one large lake and many 
small ones south of this river. If we do not 
And your lost friend on one of them and 
find no sign of his camp, then I cannot tell 
you where to look for him. 

“ But now the nights are getting cold. 
Very soon the leaves on the poplars and 
birches will turn yellow. The north wind 
will blow them down and will bring snow 


176 


THE GOLD ROCK 


and storms from the great sea beyond the 
spruce forest. 

‘‘ My sons, we must find a camp for the 
winter. It must be sheltered from the 
storms and it must be in a place where we 
can find food, a place near which we can 
catch fish and find game. There is a lake 
about one league south of this camp. To 
this lake we should carry our canoe and 
all our things and then we should make a 
good camp for the winter.” 

Both white lads were much surprised at 
the confidence with which Ganawa travelled 
across the forest toward the winter camp. 
There was no trail, but he seemed to be 
guided by a ridge of high granite cliffs, 
which ran in a general north and south di¬ 
rection. In making a portage on a trail, 
Ganawa generally carried the canoe alone, 
but on this long portage he put one end on 
his shoulder and Bruce carried the other 
end, the canoe resting bottom side up on the 
shoulders of the two men. In this way the 
leader could look ahead and pick out the 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


177 


best going through a country of many rocks, 
fallen timber and patches of thick brush and 
small bushy timber. 

When they had been going about two 
hours, with many short rests, they struck a 
well-marked moose trail leading down a 
gentle slope to their right, while to their 
left the high cliff of red granite arose steep 
and bold only a few rods away. As they 
followed this trail Ray noticed that it did 
not branch or grow dim, and suddenly they 
stepped into a small clearing with several 
sets of tepee-poles, and before them a beauti¬ 
ful lake spread out between two ranges of 
well-timbered rocky hills. 

“ Anj igami! Anj igami! ” Ganawa called. 
“ My father and I camped here once many 
years ago, and I have never forgotten the 
lake and its green hills. Here we must 
make a good camp for the winter. There 
are plenty of fish in this lake and there are 
some moose in the country, and on streams 
and small lakes not far away we should find 
plenty of beaver.” 


178 THE GOLD ROCK 

The three men had to make two more 
trips to the Michipicoten to bring their blan¬ 
kets, meat, berries, and other things. They 
tried to make Tawny stay at the new camp, 
but he did not seem to comprehend what was 
wanted of him, and in the evening after a 
total march of about fifteen miles, he was 
footsore. They had learned that it was 
useless to tie him with any kind of rope. 
If Tawny were left alone, he would always 
gnaw off his rope and follow the men, al¬ 
though he learned to stay far enough behind 
to be unseen. On the return trip he went 
ahead, and when they arrived Tawny would 
be lying quietly with his head on his paws, 
but his appearance and the gnawed rope told 
the story. 

“ My little son,” Ganawa said, laughing, 
“ Ohnemoosh is a great liar. He thinks he 
can fool us. We have no white man’s chain, 
but some day I may show you how to tie up 
Ohnemoosh so he has to stay in camp.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


THE BEAVER HUNT 

If Bruce and Ray had ever had the idea 
that Indians in camp led a lazy life, they 
now found out their mistake. 

Ganawa had made two chisels out of the 
big bones of a moose, and these chisels the 
lads learned to use in peeling spruce and 
cedar bark for a winter bark-house. They 
also secured some pieces of birch-bark, but 
most of the birches would no longer peel. 
However, with the aid of their bone chisels 
they soon secured enough spruce and cedar 
bark to build a round hut of poles and bark, 
such as the Chippewa Indians have built for 
many centuries. No nails were used in the 
construction of the house, the pieces of bark 
being tied in place with watap, rawhide, or 
thongs of willow bark. 

‘‘ We need this house if our tepee gets 

too cold, and if we live in the tepee we 

179 


180 


THE GOLD ROCK 


need it to keep our meat and other things 
so we do not lose them in the deep snow,” 
Ganawa told the lads. 

When the bark-house was finished, he told 
the boys that they must secure some kind of 
skins to make themselves a robe for winter. 
“ Our women make very warm blankets,” 
he explained, “ by weaving together many 
strips of rabbit skins, but rabbits are very 
scarce around here. The hide of a moose is 
too heavy, so we must try to get some 
beavers. But we have no traps and we can¬ 
not wait till the ponds freeze over; we must 
try to catch them when they are cutting 
trees. I think in this country the beaver 
have not been hunted much, and we may find 
them working in the daytime.” 

A few days later, the Chippewa returned 
to camp and told that he had found a beaver 
pond not far away, and on the following 
afternoon the three campers started out to 
try their luck on the shy and wary beavers. 
Tawny was also allowed to go along, for he 
was a good hunting dog, and never broke 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


181 


until he was told to go. The hunters ap¬ 
proached with the utmost care, against the 
wind, the place where the beavers were 
cutting their winter food supply of poplars. 
The pond had been occupied for several 
years, the trees near the pond had all been 
cut, and as a result the animals had to work 
more than fifty yards from water. 

In the water and in his house surrounded 
by water, a beaver can laugh at all his 
enemies with the possible exception of the 
otter. But even the otter, although like the 
beaver, he is an expert swimmer and diver, 
probably has to be content with catching a 
careless young beaver now and then. How¬ 
ever, on land the beaver is less at home than 
any old-time sailor ever was; he can neither 
put up a good fight nor make a good run 
for safety. 

When the hunters carefully peeped over 
a ridge to the beavers’ lumber-yard, the 
hearts of the white boys almost stopped beat¬ 
ing. Close by, within twenty yards they 
saw eight or ten beavers. “ They are work- 


182 


THE GOLD ROCK 


ing like beavers,” Ray whispered. And so 
they were. Some sitting on their haunches 
were cutting down trees, others were busy 
cutting felled trees into sections four or 
five feet long, and still others seemed to be 
lopping off the smaller branches. 

But there was not much time to watch a 
scene which very few white men have ever 
been lucky enough to observe. When Gan- 
awa gave the signal to fire, four beavers 
toppled over, and Tawny caught and killed 
two more before the frightened animals 
could scamper to the safety of their pond. 

Ray let out a shout and was going to 
run over to the game, but Ganawa reminded 
him that a good hunter always reloads his 
gun before he does anything else. 

Neither of the lads had ever closely ex¬ 
amined a beaver, and they had many ques¬ 
tions to ask about its peculiar structures. 
They were curious about the flat hairless 
tail, which looks as if it were covered with 
black scales; the short and stubby forelegs, 
the powerful hindlegs with webbed feet, and 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 183 

the sharp front teeth with which the beaver 
people can cut down trees much faster than 
any Indians with primitive stone axes. 

But Ganawa fingered fondly the dense 
woolly fur under the long dark brown hair. 
“ The fur is good/’ he remarked. ‘‘ It will 
make a good warm robe for my sons.” 

On the way to camp, the lads received an¬ 
other jolt to their former idea about the lazy 
life of an Indian hunter. Ganawa carried 
three beavers, Bruce took two and Bay car¬ 
ried one. An adult beaver weighs from 
thirty to fifty pounds, and when Ray 
dropped his game at the end of a three-mile 
walk through brush and timber, he felt sure 
that his beaver weighed a hundred pounds. 

Ganawa quickly skinned the smallest 
beaver, cut up the best of the meat and put 
it in the kettle. Then he scalded the black 
tail over the fire, and the skin blistered and 
came off easily. He cut the tail into sev¬ 
eral pieces and added them to the meat in 
the kettle. 

“ My sons,” he spoke, “ put a little salt 


184 THE GOLD ROCK 

in the kettle and some of the wild onions 
you have gathered. And when the meat is 
almost done, you must add a little of the 
wild rice I have in my pack. To-night we 
shall make a big feast. We shall have 
beaver meat and beaver-tail soup. Some 
white hunters say they do not care much for 
beaver meat, but all are very fond of beaver- 
tail soup. I have cut up the meat of a 
young beaver and you will find it very good.” 

The lads had grown accustomed by this 
time to a diet of fish and meat, but they 
were glad of any change and both of them 
said that beaver meat and beaver-tail soup 
were the best foods they had ever eaten. 
The meat was dark and tasted much like 
the dark meat of a chicken. 

The tail of a beaver does not consist of 
muscle, but of a peculiar white, fatty, and 
gristly texture. When boiled it looks and 
tastes like very young fat pork, and the boys 
left none of it in the kettle. It is this part 
of the beaver which furnishes the beaver-tail 
soup, highly praised in many old journals 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 185 

but never described in detail. The writer 
of this story has cooked beaver meat and 
beaver-tail soup and can testify to the fact 
that both are good. . 

If any of my readers ever have a chance 
to make a beaver stew, or beaver-tail soup, 
I would advise that they boil the meat with 
a liberal pinch of “ mixed spices ”—the kind 
one buys in paper boxes. Beaver-tail soup 
with wild rice thus properly seasoned is, 
much too good for a king, but just the food 
for a tired and hungry camper. 

Bruce and Ray could not get enough of 
the soup and when the feast was over there 
was nothing left but some bones and scraps 
for Tawny. It had been a real feast, and 
when the few dishes were washed, the lads 
built a camp-fire and asked Ganawa to tell 
them of his own boyhood of long ago. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


MUCH WORK AND A CLUE 

Next day the lads learned still more 
about the work of an Indian hunter. There 
were five more beavers to be skinned, and 
of all fur-bearing animals the beaver is the 
hardest to skin. The skin will not peel off 
like that of a rabbit, but almost every inch 
of it has to be cut and great care is needed 
not to cut into the fur. It took Ray and 
Bruce as long to skin one beaver as it took 
Ganawa to skin three. 

When this work was done, Bruce built a 

scaffold to cure and smoke the meat. “We 

cannot let so much good meat go to waste,” 

said Ganawa, “ and the weather is still too 

warm to keep it without smoking.” Each 

beaver furnished from fifteen to twenty 

pounds of meat, and all of them were fat, 

as beavers nearly always are, although they 

186 


THE GOLD ROCK 


187 

are strict vegetarians, living on bark, brush, 
and aquatic plants. 

Ray helped Ganawa to stretch the skins 
in hoops of willow. A beaver skin, when 
thus stretched by thongs inside of a hoop, 
is set aside to dry, but before it is dried all 
adhering flesh and fat must be carefully 
scraped off, otherwise the skin will spoil. 

“ I don’t think I want to be a beaver- 
trapper,” remarked Ray, when he saw how 
much work it took to prepare a skin for use 
or for the market. 

A large beaver skin, when thus stretched 
and dried, is oval in shape about three feet 
long by two and a half wide. It took about 
a week to dry the skins, and then the lads 
found that there was still much work to be 
done before they could enjoy a warm beaver 
robe. As there was no time to tan the skins, 
Ganawa and the lads softened the dry skins 
by other processes as much as possible. 
They worked them with their hands and 
feet and beat them with sticks until they 
were quite soft and pliable, although not as 


188 THE GOLD ROCK 

soft as tanned skins. Then Ganawa laid the 
six skins flat on the ground and with a 
charred stick he marked them for cut¬ 
ting. “ The Chippewa women can do 
this much better,” he remarked laughing, 
“ but in this camp we have to be our own 
women.” 

The lads wondered still more at the skill 
of an Indian when Ganawa, after cutting 
the skin with his sharp hunting-knife, showed 
to the boys the fine white threads he had made 
of the tendons of the moose. These threads 
had to be moistened before they were used, 
but unlike threads of bast, they remain very 
strong while they are dry. An awl and 
some needles Ganawa had brought with him 
so that he could make and repair moccasins. 
“ A long time ago,” he told the lads, “ my 
people used awls and needles made of bone 
or thorns, but with the needles of the white 
traders we can work very much faster.” 

,A few days later the campers secured 
four more large beavers, and the skins of 
these were used to make a sleeping-robe for 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 189 


Ganawa, while they cured the meat as they 
had done with the first lot of beavers. 

While the last beaver skins were drying, 
the lads cut a lot of wood for winter. Dry 
spruce, balsam, and mountain-ash and 
moose-maple, but also much green birch, 
which they split and piled up to dry in the 
sun near the camp-fire. All the dry wood 
was piled up in the bark-house, where the 
smoked beaver and some smoked fish were 
also hung up, so that the inside of it looked 
and smelled like a farmer’s smoke-house 
at Christmas time. 

The campers had now made the most 
necessary preparations for winter, and they 
decided that some other work could wait 
until they had explored Lake Anjigami and 
its neighborhood. The nights were growing 
frosty, birches and poplars had turned a 
golden yellow, and a strange silence per¬ 
vaded the autumn woods. The gay-colored 
warblers, the merry wrens, and even the 
white-throats had all left. 

“ We must explore the lake before ice be- 


190 


THE GOLD ROCK 


gins to form,” said Ganawa. “ To explore 
this country by walking over it is very hard 
work.” 

Bruce steered the canoe and Ganawa oc¬ 
cupied the bow, as they began skirting the 
eastern shore of the lake, while Ray and 
Tawny took things easy sitting in the bot¬ 
tom. Ray had not been willing to stay in 
camp with his dog, and Ganawa had looked 
at Bruce and said, “ My little son should 
come along; some evil might come to him if 
we leave him in camp.” 

Lake Anjigami is about eight miles long, 
running southwest and northeast, and they 
paddled slowly to the extreme southern end, 
where Ray caught a fine mess of small brook 
trout, but of any recent white man’s camp 
they found not a trace. They were, how¬ 
ever, not satisfied with merely exploring the 
shore. They walked up a small stream till 
they came to a beaver pond, where they 
carefully examined the dam, two houses and 
the high land, where trappers or hunters 
might camp, but the pond had not been 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 191 

visited by either white men or Indians for 
years. 

They even picked their way laboriously to 
the top of the highest ridge on the east side, 
some three hundred feet above the lake. 
From this point they scouted carefully for 
tepees and bark-houses and for the smoke 
of a camp-fire, but they saw no sign of any 
human being on the lake except their own 
tepees and bark-house, which, at the distance 
of two miles, looked quite small. 

On the following day they skirted the 
north and west shore. They were about to 
pull for camp with the same result when 
Ray examined with a little more care a low 
rocky knoll near the outlet. “ Oh, Father, 
oh, Bruce,” he called, “ come here and look! 
Somebody has camped here! I know they 
were white men, too! ” 

Here indeed was a white man’s camping- 
place. “ There were two white men,” Gan- 
awa told the lads. “ They had a big ax and 
cut much wood. They made a lean-to and 
slept here several nights.” 


192 THE GOLD ROCK 

“ My father,” asked Bruce, “ how long 
ago did the white men sleep here? ” 

“ They slept here about twelve moons 
ago,” replied Ganawa after he had closely 
examined a few chips and ax-cuts near the 
fire. 

Then the lads took up the dried balsam 
boughs of the campers’ bed; they examined 
every inch of ground near the camp, but 
they found no further clue as to the purpose 
or identity of the men who had made the 
camp. 


CHAPTER XXY 


A MYSTERY 

When the three campers had explored 
the shore of Lake Anjigami, they decided 
to extend their search to a smaller lake now 
called Pickerel Lake, which is connected 
with Anjigami by a short channel. This 
latter lake is crescent-shaped, and at its 
western end Bruce discovered signs of a 
camp, which had been made by the same 
men that had camped near the outlet of 
Anjigami. “ How do you know that they 
were the same men?” Ray asked. ‘‘You 
are just guessing at it, Bruce.” 

“No, I am not guessing,” replied Bruce. 
“ Come here, I shall convince you. Look, 
the ax that made this cut had two nicks in 
its blade. The nick marks here are exactly 
the same as those we found on Anjigami.” 

“ I’m convinced,” Ray admitted. “ Bruce, 

you are a real scout.” 

193 


194 


THE GOLD ROCK 


Ganawa agreed with Bruce as to the 
identity of the campers on the two lakes. 
“ The two camps were both made about 
twelve moons ago,” he asserted, “ and they 
were made by two white men.” 

“ And I believe,” Bruce added eagerly, 
“ these two camps were made by Jack Dut¬ 
ton and his companion. And I think they 
were doing what we are doing; they were ex¬ 
ploring the lake and looking for a good place 
for a winter camp. But why didn’t they 
camp where we are camping? It is the best 
place on the lake. Perhaps they camped 
some distance back from the lake in the 
brush for some reasons of their own.” 

“ Indians always camp near water,” re¬ 
marked Ganawa with a smile, “ but white 
men sometimes camp in strange places.” 

“ If these men did not lose their lives,” 
asserted Bruce, “ they spent the winter 
within ten miles of our camp. The season 
was too far advanced and travelling in this 
country is too difficult for them to go far 
before they made their winter camp. Per- 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 195 

haps they wanted to find both a good camp 
and a good hiding-place.” 

‘‘ From whom should they want to hide? ” 
asked Ray. 

“ I don’t know,” admitted Bruce. “ Their 
action is a puzzle to me.” 

“ I tell you something else that is a puzzle 
to me,” Ray said in a half-whisper, when 
he and Bruce were alone. “ Who was that 
fellow that you pretty nearly chased over 
the big falls? And why was he snooping 
around after us? Maybe he will come again. 
Believe me, Bruce, if I did not have the dog 
you would not get me to stay alone in camp 
for one hour. Maybe that fellow isn’t an 
Indian; maybe he is one of the evil spirits 
that Ganawa tells us about.” 

‘‘ Ray, don’t you know that the belief in 
evil spirits is just an Indian superstition? 
It is time I should get you back to Vermont 
and send you to school. The idea of your 
believing in evil spirits! ” 

‘‘ But why doesn’t Ganawa tell us who the 
fellow was, and why he was following us? I 


' 196 


THE GOLD ROCK 


almost wish you had chased him over the 
falls, I am afraid of him.” 

Ganawa and the boys searched the whole 
shore of Anjigami once more. They traced 
every small stream entering the lake some 
distance back into the timber, and they even 
followed several game trails that led away 
from the lake. It was all in vain; they 
found no other clue. If those two men had 
planned to vanish without leaving a sign, 
they had completely succeeded. 

Some time ago Ganawa had prepared the 
frames for three pairs of snowshoes, using 
for this purpose the wood of young black- 
ash trees he had found near their last camp. 
He had also prepared enough rawhide 
strings for the web, and all three of the 
campers now spent a few days finishing the 
work. “ They are not very good snow- 
shoes,” Ganawa admitted, “ but they will 
last through the winter.” 

About the first of November the weather 
turned cold. Ice began to form along 
the shore of the lake, and small lakes and 


I 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 197 

beaver ponds were entirely covered with 
their ice. 

“ My sons, to-day we must go and catch 
some more beavers,” said Ganawa one morn¬ 
ing. “ Winter has begun and we shall soon 
need warm mittens and caps, or we cannot 
leave the camp in cold weather.” 

When they arrived at the pond, Ganawa 
asked the boys to walk with him as quietly 
as possible around the edge of the pond. 
“We must learn where their washes are,” 
he told the lads, “ before we make any noise 
at their houses.” 

Neither of the lads knew what beaver 
“ washes ” are, but they soon learned that 
this is the name used by Indians and white 
trappers for the burrows which the beavers 
excavate in the banks of their ponds. The 
pond was a large one and the hunters found 
half a dozen washes. 

“ Now, my sons,” said Ganawa after they 
had explored the whole pond, “ each of you 
pick up a good stick and then we shall go 
to the two beaver houses.” 


198 


THE GOLD ROCK 


“ Make a big noise/’ he told the lads at 
the first house. “ Strike the roofs with your 
sticks and make a big yell, then the beavers 
will think we are going to break into their 
house.” 

Ganawa had scarcely finished his direc¬ 
tions when down came three clubs on the 
pole-and-mud roof of the beaver house, and 
the boys uttered such piercing yells that 
Ganawa laughed aloud and said, “ My sons, 
you can yell like Sioux warriors. You al¬ 
most scared me.” 

The beating and the yells certainly scared 
the beavers. Eight or ten of them, big ones 
and little ones, dived out of the house and 
swam for the washes. “There they go! 
There they go! ” cried Ray, and he ran after 
them on the clear ice. 

The same process was repeated at the sec¬ 
ond beaver house, and Ray became so ex¬ 
cited at the beaver hunt that he had a nar¬ 
row escape from breaking through the thin 
ice near the house. 

The lad wondered how they were going to 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 199 


get the beavers out of the washes. We 
have no traps,” he thought, “ and no hooks 
or snares.” 

When the hunters reached the first wash, 
they knew at once that one or more beavers 
had taken refuge in this burrow, because 
the water which had been perfectly clear a 
short time ago was now roiled. Ganawa 
broke the ice with his hatchet and pushed a 
pole under the bank to find out how far back 
the beavers were, and with a paddle, which 
he had brought along, he dug a hole into the 
cavity near the end where the beavers were 
hidden. Then, to the great surprise of both 
lads, he lay down flat on the ground, and be¬ 
fore the lads realized what was happening, 
he had reached into the wash and had flipped 
out three beavers, which Tawny caught and 
killed as quickly as a good terrier disposes 
of rats. 

“ An Indian surely knows how to do and 
get things in the woods,” exclaimed Ray. 
“ Don’t they ever bite you? ” 

“ Yes, my son, they bite,” replied Ganawa 


200 


THE GOLD ROCK 


laughing, “ if you give them time. But this 
is the way our fathers always caught beavers 
before the white traders brought us iron 
traps.” 

By opening two other washes, the hunters 
caught a total of eight beavers, but some of 
them were small, being the young of the 
previous spring. Ganawa said they had now 
enough beaver skins so he could make a cap 
and some warm mittens for each of them. 

“ After the snow has come, I think we can 
find a moose to furnish us meat during the 
winter. If we had to live on beaver all win¬ 
ter, we should have to catch some more now, 
for when the ice gets thick and the ground 
is frozen, we cannot catch them in their 
washes.” 

During the week that the beaver skins 
were drying and were being made up into 
caps and mittens, the boys tried fishing 
through the ice, but they had very little luck, 
because pickerel, pike, and lake trout seldom 
pay any attention to dead bait, and the boys 
could find no minnows, although they had 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 201 

made a crude dip-net out of a piece of gunny 
sack. 

A few days later there was a light snow¬ 
fall, and the three campers began to look for 
moose tracks. However, there seemed to be 
more wolves in the country than moose; for, 
almost every night, they heard wolves howl 
and they found wolf tracks within a few rods 
of their camp. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


STALKING A MOOSE 

One morning, when the lads awoke at day¬ 
break, Ganawa was gone. The lads arose, 
started the fire in the tepee and boiled some 
fresh beaver meat. The night had been quite 
cold and some hot broth seemed good for 
breakfast. 

The boys had guessed right that Ganawa 
had gone scouting for moose tracks, and in a 
short time he returned to tell the boys that 
during the night a young moose had crossed 
the lake near their camp and had travelled 
east against the wind. 

“We must eat,” he said, “ and then we 
must follow the moose. We must wear our 
warm winter moccasins and we must take 
our blankets, for no hunter can tell how far 
he may have to track a moose.” 

It took some time before the hunters were 

ready to take the trail. “ The moose may be 

202 


THE GOLD ROCK 


203 


a long way ahead of us,” Ganawa told the 
lads, “ because I cannot tell at what time of 
the night he passed our camp. We must 
follow him slowly and you, my sons, and the 
dog must travel a good way behind me so we 
do not scare him. If we scare him, he will 
start running and we shall lose him.” 

The animal had been going at a walk. He 
had followed the general direction of a small 
spring stream that enters Lake Anjigami 
near the camp of the hunters. This spring 
brook heads in a spruce swamp about a mile 
from the lake. “ If he has gone into that 
swamp it will he very difficult to follow 
him,” remarked Ganawa, as the hunters 
started on the trail. 

It was found that the game had passed 
along the spruce swamp. At the end of the 
swamp it had turned leisurely a little more 
easterly until it came to a high ridge within 
sight of one of those small lakes which are 
scattered by the tens of thousands over a 
region north and south of Lake Superior. 

On the high ridge the moose had fed on 


204 


THE GOLD ROCK 


the twigs of young poplar trees, breaking 
down some of them of the thickness of a 
man’s wrist. At the north end of the lake it 
had crossed the outlet and had stopped to 
feed on some low willows and juneberry 
bushes. It had not touched pin-cherry and 
choke-cherry, but it had fed freely on young 
white birches and on the bushy moose-maple, 
which never grows to tree size. 

“ How can an animal grow big and fat 
when it eats nothing but wood? ” asked Ray. 

“ The little twigs, my son, which the moose 
eats are not all wood,” replied Ganawa. 
“ There is much food in them and in the 
buds. Moose and deer live on browse in 
the winter, grouse and fool-hens live on buds, 
rabbits and mice live on bark, and if the 
squirrels have not enough hazelnuts and 
seeds they also eat buds.” 

After they had cautiously followed the 
trail for about two hours, Ganawa sat down 
on a log. 

“ My sons,” he said, “ take a rest. This 
track was made last night. In some open 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


205 


spots the wind has filled in the footprints 
and in some sheltered spots the sun has 
melted the edges of the snow just a little bit. 
I fear he is a long way ahead of us, but if it 
does not begin to snow, we must follow him 
till we find him; for when the weather gets 
cold the wolves may drive all the moose out 
of the country.” 

During the afternoon, the hunters found 
several places where the moose had lain 
down. As the wind had veered toward the 
north, the game had also turned north. 
“ He smells danger ahead of him,” Ganawa 
told the boys, ‘‘ and he listens for danger be¬ 
hind him. He has not been scared and does 
not know that hunters are following him.” 

About an hour before sunset, the hunters 
made camp in a sheltered hollow near a small 
stream, and built a fire on the leeward side 
of a big log. 

“ We may build a fire,” said Ganawa, 
“ but we must not use our axes. If the 
moose hears the sound of an ax, he will get 
up and run a league.” 


206 


THE GOLD ROCK 


After the hunters had eaten their meat 
and drunk some hot broth, they scraped 
away the snow from the ground and made a 
bed of spruce and balsam boughs. Bruce 
and Ganawa gathered some more dead wood 
for the fire, but Ray was so tired that he 
wrapped himself in his blankets, and very 
soon he fell asleep with Tawny curled up at 
his feet. 

For some time Bruce and Ganawa tended 
the fire in silence, for the ever-changing 
flames of a camp-fire seem to incite the im¬ 
agination to recall the past and to peer be¬ 
hind the veil of the future. During the night 
Bruce and Ganawa took turns replenishing 
the fire, for no camp-fire can be built in such 
a way that it will keep a man warm all night 
without being replenished several times. 
This is especially true if dry and dead wood 
has to be used. But even under the most 
favorable circumstances, when the camper 
has cut stout back-logs or can use rocks as 
a back-wall and can use green birch, hickory, 
ash, or hard maple as fuel, he will have to 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 207 


get up once or twice, for even the green 
woods mentioned burn fast with the free 
access of air. 

The night was not cold, as winter nights 
go, and when, after a hearty breakfast of 
toasted meat, boiled meat and hot broth, the 
hunters again took up the trail, each of them 
felt fit to follow the trail all day. 

It was just light enough to see the tracks 
when they started, and Ganawa cautioned 
the lads to avoid all noise. “ Be very care¬ 
ful not to break any sticks, and you must 
not talk. It may be,” he explained, “ that 
the moose is leagues ahead of us, but we can¬ 
not tell; he may not be far away. You, my 
sons, should walk about fifty paces behind 
me, and you must be sure not to let Ohne- 
moosh break away when I see the moose.” 

They had travelled about a mile when the 
lads were made to realize that their guide 
had not needlessly cautioned them against 
making noise. He now halted suddenly and 
motioned the lads not to come nearer. Then 
he peered carefully through some bushes just 


208 


THE GOLD ROCK 


ahead, but presently motioned to the lads to 
come up to him. 

“ Look! ” he said, pointing to the bed of 
a moose. “ It is almost warm yet. I think 
we scared him.” The tracks showed plainly 
that the moose had stood for a moment fac¬ 
ing his back trail. Then he had turned 
around short and trotted off in a northwest¬ 
erly direction against the wind, for during 
the last twenty-four hours the wind had 
swung around from northeast to northwest. 

“We must wait here,” Ganawa advised, 
“ so he will get over being scared.” And as 
the hunters stood and looked around, they 
saw that the evening before the moose had 
fed freely on poplar and birch brush close 
by, and had then selected a well-sheltered 
bed behind a thicket of spruce, where he had 
been apparently lying down all night. 

After an hour’s rest, the hunters again 
took up the trail, and they found that the 
moose had soon slowed down to a walk. 

Early in the afternoon the moose suddenly 
appeared in plain view, as the hunters peered 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 209 


over a ridge. There he stood, a fine young 
bull moose, feeding on some willows. By 
crawling a few rods westward behind the 
ridge, Ganawa approached within thirty 
yards and brought down his game with one 
carefully aimed shot. Ganawa carried an 
old Hudson Bay smooth-bore gun, and he 
seldom fired at moose or deer at a longer 
range. 

Lead and powder were so very expensive 
to the old-time Indians that they could not 
afford the wild shooting of many present- 
day white hunters, but were compelled to 
stalk their game until they had approached 
within close range. 

The hunters set to work at once to dress 
their game, but the afternoon was well ad¬ 
vanced when the meat was cut up and hung 
up in trees out of reach of the wolves. Cer¬ 
tain choice parts they had laid aside for a 
big hunters’ feast: The tongue, a piece of 
the stomach which makes excellent tripe, the 
kidneys, a piece of liver and some choice fat 
steak and a piece of suet. The hunters had 


210 


THE GOLD ROCK 


walked some ten miles; they had not eaten 
fresh moose meat for weeks and they felt 
ravenously hungry. 

In a very short time there would be meat 
broiled, meat fried, and meat boiled, and 
they would have a feast such as only hungry 
hunters and explorers ever enjoy. 

So busy had the boys been cutting out the 
meat and hanging it up in trees that they 
had not noticed a change in the weather. 
And now a great disappointment was in 
store for them. Ganawa climbed up on a 
big rock and pointed toward the northwest. 
‘‘ Look, my sons,” he said earnestly. “ Do 
you see the black clouds? They will bring 
snow and a big, cold wind; and very soon it 
will be dark. Take up the meat for our 
feast and follow me. We must walk fast 
to find a good shelter, or we shall freeze to 
death. This ridge and the small bushes will 
give us no shelter in a storm and no wood for 
our fire.” 



There he stood, a fine young bull moose, feeding on 

SOME WILLOWS .— P<«JC 209 . 




’•^,.-Jv;r,r ),^£K- - .'fi'-', 







CHAPTER XXVII 


THE STORM CAMP 

They had gone about a mile when Gan- 
awa put down the moose-hide and his blanket 
at the foot of a high granite cliff in the lee 
of a dense spruce forest that sloped down 
to one of those innumerable small streams 
that wind their way through every valley 
and ravine of the Lake Superior region, lit¬ 
tle streams that are destined to feed the Big 
Lake as long as the northern forest shades 
their pools and ripples. The trees of the 
north: pine, spruce, balsam, birch, poplar, 
and alder; they are indeed the keepers, the 
preservers of the small brooks in whose pools 
the wild violets are mirrored in June; and 
if the forests are ever destroyed, the music 
of the little brooks will die away. 

‘‘ Here we must camp till the storm has 
passed,” said Ganawa. “We must lean our 

tepee-poles against the cliff.” 

211 


212 


THE GOLD ROCK 


The lads understood at once what was 
wanted, Bruce swung his big ax, and with 
one or two blows a pole came down. As 
Bruce felled the poles, the other two hunters 
trimmed them and leaned them against the 
cliff. “We must make a long tepee,” the 
Chippewa told his white sons, “ long enough 
for two beds.” 

In a surprisingly short time the frame of 
the long tepee stood complete, and now 
Ganawa again displayed to the lads the re¬ 
sourcefulness of the Indian in the wilder¬ 
ness. He first tied the moose-hide to the 
lower part of the poles, with the hair side in. 
“ It will soon freeze hard,” he said, “ and will 
not slip.” Then he tied several slender poles 
crosswise to the upper half of the leaning 
tepee-poles, and with the aid of a supply of 
rawhide strings, he fastened a thatch of 
spruce and balsam boughs to the upper part 
of the long tepee. 

The most difficult part of the work was 
making a bed for the boys. There was a 
fairly level sleeping-place for Ganawa, but 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


213 


the rest of the tepee floor was a jumble of 
angular rocks, and over these the lads had 
to build a pole platform. However, as 
young spruces and poplars grew in abun¬ 
dance close by, even this was finished in a 
short time. When in addition to all this an 
abundant supply of spruce and balsam 
boughs had been cut and spread on the two 
beds, the camp itself was ready for the night, 
but more work had to be done before it 
would be a safe place for the hunters during 
the coming storm. Such severe weather 
would require a good shelter. 

Bruce now set to work cutting firewood: 
green spruce and birch, with some dry stuff 
mixed in for giving the fire a good start or 
for making it come to quickly when it was 
low. While Bruce was cutting wood, Gan- 
awa first made the beds and then carried the 
heavy billets to the camp, where he piled 
them up, some inside and others just outside 
the entrance. Ray also had work to do. He 
brought a kettleful of water from the stream, 
washed the moose tripe in the brook, started 


214 


THE GOLD ROCK 


a fire under the slanting granite wall and 
began preparations for the feast. 

The tongue, the kidneys, and a piece of 
tripe he set boiling in the kettle. On a grill 
of green sticks, as soon as he had enough 
live coals, he broiled some choice steak, while 
he fried other pieces of steak and liver in a 
panful of melted suet. 

Daylight was just beginning to fade out¬ 
side when the three hunters were ready for 
the feast. Ganawa, who was the last one in, 
closed the opening with a piece of buckskin 
and the boys could not help wondering at 
the shelter they had contrived to put up in 
this lonely uninhabited wilderness. The fire 
burnt freely in front of the red granite and 
the smoke drew off perfectly through an 
opening between two poplar poles. The hot 
bed of coals and the heated rock spread a 
gentle warmth through the camp which, 
for the time, made this makeshift shelter 
as comfortable as a log-house with a fire¬ 
place. 

“ My sons, you must not eat too fast,” 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 215 

said Ganawa, “ because we have now much 
time to eat and to sleep and to talk.” 

The broiled and the fried steak was soon 
disposed of, and the boys agreed it was the 
best meat they had ever eaten. The young 
moose had been in good condition and the 
meat was tender and well-flavored. 

Within an hour the meat in the kettle was 
done; and with his hunting-knife every one 
fished out what he liked, using a piece of 
bark for a plate. The white boys ate their 
meat and drank the hot broth with a little 
salt, but Ganawa ate his meat and drank his 
broth without any salt. 

“ I can’t eat any more,” Ray admitted, 
after he had sampled every kind of meat and 
had emptied his second cup of soup, “ and 
I’m as warm as I ever was at home in Ver¬ 
mont.” 

To both of the lads it seemed a little un¬ 
real that they should be sitting here warm 
and cozy at a bright fire, inhaling the odor 
of fresh spruce and balsam. The long, 
weary trailing after the moose seemed like 


216 THE GOLD ROCK 

a dream of something that happened long 
ago. 

Outside over the tops of the spruces and 
through the scattered pines on the cliff 
above, the storm began to roar with that pe¬ 
culiar dull monotone which makes one be 
truly grateful for a safe and warm camp. 

Ray put his head out for a few seconds. 
“ Ugh,” he exclaimed. It is pitch-dark, the 
snow is coming down fast, and it is 
getting awfully cold. We should surely 
freeze to death if we had not put up this 
camp.” 

As the hunters were very tired they soon 
stretched out on their beds of spruce and 
balsam. The moose-hide kept the cold air 
from their beds and both dog and men were 
soon sound asleep. Bruce and Ganawa each 
arose once to replenish the fire. Ray had 
also intended to take his turn at this work, 
but when he woke up, daylight was shining 
through the smoke-hole, and over a fire of 
birchwood coals Bruce was broiling moose 
meat for breakfast, while Tawny was sitting 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


217 


up, intently watching the cook, in anticipa¬ 
tion of his own breakfast. 

Ray muttered as he sat up and rubbed his 
eyes, “ I never slept as I did in this storm 
camp. I tell you, Bruce, a good Indian 
hunter certainly knows how to take care of 
himself in the woods.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


FIGHTING A WOLF 

The storm had not abated, but so well 
had the hunters built their camp that the 
snow and the cold had even improved it; 
for the snow had drifted in around the 
bottom of the tepee making the shelter much 
warmer than it would have been without the 
snow. Some of the snow had partly melted 
on the spruce thatch, but with the falling 
temperature it had frozen and thus made the 
thatch of boughs almost as tight as a roof 
of shingles; of course some of the fine snow 
had drifted in, but that had been expected, 
and the lads scraped it together and threw 
it out. The outside of their cover blanket 
was a little damp from snow that had sifted 
in and melted, and the lads hung up the 
blankets so that the reflection from the fire 
and the warm rock would dry them. 

There was now plenty of time for every- 

218 


THE GOLD ROCK 


219 


thing at this camp. Cutting wood, fetching 
water, cooking, and eating were all the 
campers had to do besides sleeping and talk¬ 
ing. For two days the storm continued and 
it grew so cold that Bruce spent two hours 
a day cutting wood for the fire. As long 
as the fire was kept burning, the camp was 
very comfortable, but naturally when the 
fire went out, the camp grew chilly; how¬ 
ever, the lads had a feeling that they had 
miraculously escaped freezing to death, and 
minor discomforts did not annoy them. 

On the third morning, the weather had 
cleared, although it was now colder than 
ever. 

“We must start for our lake camp to¬ 
day,” Ganawa said, after he had taken a 
look at the weather. “We must each take 
some meat with us, but we cannot carry 
much, because it will be hard travelling.” 

Travelling was much harder than the lads 
had anticipated. Their snowshoes were, as 
Ganawa had said, not of the best, and the 
going was very tiring, because a crust had 


220 


THE GOLD ROCK 


begun forming over the surface of the snow, 
but it would not yet support the weight of 
a man. 

They struck straight out for their camp, 
which was not more than twelve miles south¬ 
west of them, but it took them all day to 
complete the trip, and Ray was so tired that 
he claimed he could not have walked another 
mile. They found their home camp not at 
all inviting, and the five days they had been 
away seemed like a long time. Much snow 
had blown into both the tepee and the bark- 
house; however, after thev had cleared out 
the snow, built a fire in the tepee and saw 
the smoke come curling out of the top, the 
camp looked like home again. 

There was only one thing that disturbed 
the boys, and Ganawa did not seem to like 
it, either. On the trip from the hunting 
camp they had not seen a track or sign of a 
living thing except a few woodpeckers; 
but near their home camp they saw many 
fresh wolf tracks, and one of the beasts had 
boldly walked up to the bark-house. 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


221 


“ The mahungeens are hungry and they 
smelled our meat in the bark-house,” Gan- 
awa told the boys. “ If we had much pow¬ 
der and lead we should kill some of them, 
so they do not get too bold.” 

The three hunters were now snowed in 
for the winter. “We have denned up like 
the bears,” Bruce told Ray, “ and now is 
your chance to make up rest and sleep.” 

However, the campers were not idle. 
Wood had to be cut and carried in, two 
meals had to be cooked and eaten, and 
moccasins, clothing, and blankets needed 
attention. There was very little dishwash¬ 
ing, because the hunters had no dishes out¬ 
side of a kettle, a frying-pan, and three tin 
cups. The lads tried fishing, but they had 
no luck. 

All the campers made three snowshoe 
trips after the moose meat. On these oc¬ 
casions they always spent a night at the 
storm camp, which made a pleasant break in 
the monotony of their winter life, and 
robbed the trip of all hardship. 


222 


THE GOLD ROCK 


On these trips they saw grouse, rabbits, 
and squirrels, but no big game. The moose 
had left the country. On the last trip, sev¬ 
eral wolves followed them almost to the 
home camp. “We ought to shoot them,” 
Ganawa said again, “if we had more pow¬ 
der and lead. Hunger is making them 
bold.” 

“ How often does a wolf eat? ” asked Ray. 

“ My son, a wolf does not eat often in 
winter, when game is scarce, because on 
many days he cannot catch game. If he 
can make ten good meals or twelve all win¬ 
ter, he will not starve, but he will be thin. 
The wolves are hungry. We have seen no 
tracks of moose or caribou. There are not 
very many rabbits in the country, and wah- 
boos and his tribe are wise. They know 
enough to live in the thick brush of swamps, 
where it is difficult for mahungeen to catch 
them.” 

A few days later Bruce had an experience 
with a wolf which made him sorely regret 
that he had not heeded Ganawa’s warning 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 223 

never to go away by himself without taking 
his gun along. 

Near the spruce swamp, which they 
passed on their way to the hunting camp, 
Bruce had seen a number of grouse. The 
three hunters had really lost all count of 
the days, but after they had moved into 
their winter camp they decided to keep one 
day a week as Sunday. So one Saturday 
afternoon Bruce started with a bow and 
some blunt arrows to get a few grouse for 
their Sunday dinner, for all felt that they 
would be a welcome treat. 

About a mile from camp he saw a lone 
wolf come out on the trail. The beast had 
heard and smelled Bruce and now he came 
slowly forward, his teeth flashing and his 
shaggy hair bristling on his back and shoul¬ 
der. The brute looked lean and hungry, 
and Bruce felt his own hair rise on his head. 
He had never seen a wolf act so bold as this 
one, and he reached instinctively for his 
hunting-knife, and found to his horror that 
he had forgotten to put it back in the sheath 


224 THE GOLD ROCK 

after he had cut some birch brush for a new 
broom. 

To shoot blunt wooden arrows at the wolf 
would have been useless, to turn and run 
for home would mean sure death if the 
hungry beast followed and attacked him. 
There was only one thing to do. Fight for 
his life barehanded. Bruce had done con¬ 
siderable boxing with the boys in Vermont, 
and now he squared himself for the attack. 

The wolf made a high leap for the man’s 
throat, but with the skill of a trained fighter, 
the man thrust the open jaw upward with 
his left arm and delivered a heavy blow on 
the chest of the beast with his right. The 
blow threw the wolf back but his heavy fur 
and loose skin protected him from being 
knocked out. A second time the grim, 
hungry beast sprang to the attack and again 
the man parried the open jaw and drove 
home a blow with his right. This time with 
so much force that the ugly gray beast 
reeled and fell on his back. But he was not 
stunned, and before the man realized that 


, OF THE CHIPPEWA 225 

he might have fallen upon the prostrate 
brute, the wolf was up again and was com¬ 
ing to repeat his attack. 

However, there had been just enough of 
a pause to enable the man to form a plan, 
and when the wolf sprang at him for the 
third time, he did not merely ward off the 
gaping jaw, and he did not try to deliver 
another blow. His mind had hit upon a 
plan of closing with the fierce hairy monster. 
He shot out his right hand, seized a firm 
hold on the skin just behind the wolf’s left 
jaw, and brought his full weight down on 
the beast as he fell on top of him in the 
snow. The man let out a wild yell as for 
a second he felt the wolf limp under his 
weight. But he had rejoiced too soon. A 
wild animal, when cornered, never stops 
fighting until he is dead or completely over¬ 
powered and made helpless. The wolf was 
fighting again. True, his formidable vise¬ 
like jaws he could not use and the man had 
clenched his powerful hands around the 
wolf’s throat. It was a battle to the death. 


226 


THE GOLD ROCK 


with neither wolf nor man as yet the vic¬ 
tor. The claws of the wolf are dull tools 
as compared with the sharp steel-like claws 
of the panther, but driven by hard, powerful 
muscles they are no mean weapons. Had 
not the man been protected by tough buck¬ 
skin clothing, his skin would have been 
lacerated and he might have bled to death, 
holding his savage victim. The man was 
winning now. The struggles of the gray 
beast grew less and less violent, then they 
became like cramps and spasms, and then 
the long gray body lay still. 

The man was sweating and bleeding; he 
still clenched the throat of the wolf as if 
unconscious of the fact that the animal no 
longer moved. And then he heard a long- 
drawn-out howl, the hunting call of the wolf 
pack. That brought him to. He sprang 
to his feet. He snatched off a young pop¬ 
lar, brittle with frost, and with it he crushed 
the skull of the beast, for he was still mad 
with the fear and rage of the battle. 

Then he seized the dead beast by the fore- 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 227 


legs, flung it over his shoulder and ran for 
camp. The joy of victory seemed to give 
him unlimited strength. Half-way down to 
camp, he heard again the call of the pack. 
They were nearer now. He turned back 
and shouted, “ Stay back, you dirty brutes! ” 
and ran on. 

He reached the camp when it was almost 
dark. “ Father, I killed a wolf, I killed 
him,” he called as he staggered into the 
tepee. “ He is right out there! I killed 
him, but he pretty near got me.” And then 
he fell into a dead faint like a runner who 
has used up his last bit of energy in winning 


a race. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


A DISCOATERY 

Ray at once made his older brother com¬ 
fortable by j)lacmg a rolled blanket under 
his head. “ Good gracious, Bruce! ” he ex¬ 
claimed, “ you certainly look as if you had 
been in a fight.” And with these words he 
began to wash the blood from Bruce’s face, 
and Bruce came to very soon. But he could 
not tell how his left hand had become 
lacerated, nor did he even know that he had 
several bad scratch-wounds on his legs and 
body. Ray washed the wounds with warm 
water, dressed them with softened moose 
tallow and bandaged them with strips of 
clean bandanna handkerchiefs, the only 
thing in camp suitable for this purpose. 

Ganawa had rushed out with his gun, and 
in a few minutes Ray heard him shoot. “ I 

killed two,” he reported when he returned. 

228 


THE GOLD ROCK 


229 


t 

The others ran away, and I think they will 
not trouble us again.” 

The wolf which Bruce had killed was 
very lean. Bruce estimated that he weighed 
at least seventy pounds, ten pounds more 
than a bushel of wheat. In good condi¬ 
tion he would have wqghed about ninety 
pounds. 

Fortunately the wounds which Bruce had 
received in his fight with the wolf did not 
fester, and a week later the campers had 
boiled wild chicken with wild rice and 
hominy for their Sunday dinner. It was 
Bruce who had brought a little hominy from 
the Soo ” to be used on very special oc¬ 
casions. Bruce had not found it very dif¬ 
ficult to secure three grouse with blunt 
arrows, but he had not forgotten to take his 
gun and knife along, although no wolves had 
been seen or heard near the camp since he 
had had his great fight. 

Ganawa was very proud of the victory of 
his white son. “ If you were a Chippewa,” 
he told Bruce, ‘‘ you would be allowed to 


230 


THE GOLD ROCK 


wear an eagle feather for killing mahun- 
geen. I know of only one Indian who 
killed mahungeen in a hand-to-hand fight, 
but he had a knife.” 

Winter lasts a long time in the North 
Country, but the campers always found 
something to do, and as Ganawa could tell 
stories and Indian legends by the hour, the 
lads had no time to be unhappy, although 
they eagerly watched and waited for signs 
of spring. From time to time they tried 
fishing through the ice, but by the middle 
of February the ice was three feet thick 
and cutting a hole through it meant a great 
deal of labor. 

At last, about the middle of April, the 
margins of the lakes began to thaw, ducks 
and geese began to come north, and on 
warm, sunny days the sap of the white 
birches ran freely. The sap of birch-trees 
runs as freely in spring as the sap of maples, 
but it contains so little sugar that it is not 
suitable for the making of syrup or sugar. 

It was on a warm afternoon late in April, 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 281 


when Ray came to camp greatly excited by 
something he had discovered. 

“ Father,” he called out of breath to Gan- 
awa, “ I have found a log cabin. It is a 
very small cabin. Nobody lives in it, but 
it must have been built by a white man. 

“ Come along, Bruce; let me show it to 
you. It is in the Wolf Swamp, only about 
a hundred yards from the spot where you 
killed the wolf.” 

This was indeed real news to the camp. 
Could this be the clue to Jack Dutton’s 
camp? Why should anybody want to hide 
himself in the Wolf Swamp, as Ray had 
called the place, when there was a good 
camping-place on Lake Anjigami? 

Ray proudly led the way to his discovery. 
Sure enough, there was the log cabin, but 
it was not a cabin any man had lived in. 

“ It was a cache,” Ganawa told the lads. 
“ A place where somebody kept fur. But 
they must have had a camp close by,” he 
added. A dim trail led away from the 
cache to the other side of the narrow swamp. 


232 


THE GOLD ROCK 


and there was the camp-site plain enough, 
and several signs indicated that the campers 
had been white men. The camp showed a 
larger outside fireplace than Indians would 
have used, and they had cut much wood. 

Bruce began at once to examine the cuts 
on the stumps near the camp-site, and very 
soon the young man, who was generally very 
calm, sprang up, swung his arms around 
and called: “ I have found it. Father! I 
have found it! Look, here is the same ax- 
mark we found last fall at the camp-site on 
Lake Anjigami. I noticed the same marks 
on the logs in the cache cabin.” 

“ No, Bruce, you are mistaken,” Ray 
argued. “ The ax-marks are not the same. 
The ax at this camp had a much smaller 
nick.” 

“ It had a smaller nick,” Bruce admitted, 
‘‘ and I can tell you why. The campers, of 
course, had no grindstone. They may have 
had a file or a small whetstone, or they may 
have used an ordinary rock to keep their 
ax in fair condition. Had they had a grind- 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


233 


stone, they would have given their ax a com¬ 
plete keen edge, but as it was they only 
reduced the nick in size. But you will 
notice that the nick is in the same place, near 
the front part of the ax.” 

Both Ganawa and Ray were convinced 
that Bruce was right, but the question who 
these mysterious campers were was not at 
all solved by what they had found. Were 
they Jack Dutton and his partner or some 
unknown strangers? Perhaps two adven¬ 
turous Frenchmen had penetrated into this 
region while it still contained an abundance 
of the most valuable fur-bearers: marten, 
beaver, and otter. All three of them 
searched carefully for signs to solve this 
riddle, but darkness came on before they had 
discovered any further clues to the solution 
of their problem. 

“ If this was Jack Dutton’s camp,” Bruce 
remarked as they walked along the trail, 
“ something must have muddled his head. 
He does not meet us at Mackinac nor at 
the Soo, and he leaves no letter or word 


234 THE GOLD ROCK 

with anybody. If there were whales in Lake 
Superior, I should say he suffered the fate 
of Jonah. A trader at the Soo told us that 
a man cannot disappear in the Indian coun¬ 
try. It seems to me Jack Dutton did the 
trick to perfection. 

“ If the camp-sites we have found be¬ 
longed to him, why didn’t he leave some 
kind of message? I have had a vague hope 
that we might find him in this region. It is 
the kind of country he and I used to talk 
and dream about when we were boys on 
the farm. But now I begin to fear that 
Jack is dead. Perhaps the wolves finished 
him as they came near doing with me. Jack 
was always a dare-devil and he would not 
realize that the wolves in this wild country 
are much bolder than they are in Vermont.” 

Soon after daylight, the three hunters 
were again diligently searching for some 
clue that might point to the identity of the 
mysterious campers. Ray was the first who 
pointed out something that aroused some 
discussion. Who tore off half of the birch- 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 235 

bark roof of the log cabin cache? A bear 
might have done it, but no claw-marks 
were visible. If it had been done by a 
storm, why were there no indications of a 
violent wind on the trees close by? 

“ Somebody tore off the roof,” Ganawa 
gave as his opinion, “ but I cannot tell why 
he did not open the cache by pulling out the 
logs that were put in loose to serve as a 
door.” 

Bruce followed a plan of his own in the 
search for a clue. He slowly walked around 
the old tepee poles of the camp-site in a 
gradually enlarging spiral. “ If there is 
anything,” he thought, “ I am bound to find 
it in this way.” And he did find a broad 
blaze on a rough old birch-tree and on the 
blaze was some lettering, but it was hard to 
read. The letters seemed to have been 
scratched in with the point of a knife and 
then blackened, or rather made dull gray, 
with a piece of pointed lead. Bruce’s heart 
beat fast and he forgot to call his friends as 
he tried to decipher the scrawls, and no 


236 


THE GOLD ROCK 

discoverer of long buried records has ever 
been more absorbed in deciphering their 
meaning than Bruce was in reading the 
words on the blaze: 

(5(?VEAW^rHIEi5TOLE 

MARTEMFykMTTFWLVCK 

LOOkYOi'V^ll^CItTKEF 

Bruce could make nothing out of the let¬ 
tering until he discovered that the writer 
had run two or three words together and 
had misspelled “ week after that the mes¬ 
sage suddenly flashed out plainly enough. 

“ Gone a week. Thief stole marten fur. 
Rotten luck. Look young birch-tree.” 

It took Bruce but a moment to find the 
young birch-tree with smooth white bark, on 
which a longer message was written a little 
more plainly. 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 237 


“We go back to lake,” read the message. 
“ Bad luck here. Intend to go to Michipi- 
coten Island, and to Island of Yellow 
Sands. Rotten luck here. Maybe the yel¬ 
low sand is gold. If we catch the thief, he 
will never steal again. 



And then Bruce gave a yell. “ Come 
here, friends! ” he called. “ I have found a 
message from Jack Dutton.” 


CHAPTER XXX 


GANAWA IS FRIGHTENED 

“ Where is Michipicoten Island? Where 
is the Island of Yellow Sands? How far is 
it? Have you ever been there? ” These 
and other questions the lads asked of Gan- 
awa. 

Fortunately the writer of the message had 
signed his initials in script, which Bruce 
recognized as Jack Dutton’s signature. 
But one thing Jack had forgotten; the mes¬ 
sage bore no date. Ganawa said the blaze 
on the tree had been made last spring, be¬ 
fore the trees stopped growing for the sea¬ 
son, and he added: “ If your friends were 
foolish enough to go to the big island Michi¬ 
picoten and to the small island of the Yel¬ 
low Sands, they would not go before the 
Moon of Strawberries, because before that 

time the Big Lake is too rough. Only 

238 


THE GOLD ROCK 


239 


foolish white men paddle out on the Big 
Lake in a canoe.” 

After this discovery there was no holding 
the boys in camp any longer. Within a few 
days they had carried everything to the 
nearest point on the Michipicoten River, 
and with Ganawa in the stern they glided 
down the swift stream, in which the water 
was running so high that most of the dan¬ 
gerous rocks and rapids were covered with 
a swift gliding current. So rapidly did 
they travel that they reached their old camp 
above the big falls in less than a day. 

After the camp had been set up, they 
walked down to the falls, which roared much 
louder than they had done at the time of 
low water in autumn, because the river was 
now high from the melting snow, of which 
much was still left on north-facing slopes. 

Ray could not resist pushing a stranded 
log into the current and see it go through 
the chute and over the falls. The big white 
log shot like an arrow over the first two 
drops, then it turned on end and was hurled 


240 


THE GOLD ROCK 


almost clear of the third and fourth steps, 
and when it arrived in the big pool it was 
broken in two and one part followed the 
other in the mad whirl of the pool, as if 
the spirit of the tree were still alive in the 
battered and broken logs. 

Another day brought the travellers to the 
mouth of the river, to the camp of the 
Ininiwac people, whom they had last seen in 

» 

the autumn before. Of these people they 
learned one thing of much interest to all of 
them. 

Hamogeesik had also gone up the Michi- 
picoten last autumn, but he had soon re¬ 
turned without his canoe and his gun. He 
had told that a storm had set his canoe 
adrift down the falls. The canoe had 
been broken and he had not been able to 
find his gun. He had then bought an old 
gun of one of the Indians and had promised 
to return in the spring and pay for the gun 
with furs. Thus far he had not returned 
and the Indians did not know where he had 
made his winter camp. 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 241 


Bruce and Ray had been fully determined 
that they would follow Jack Dutton to the 
islands in Lake Superior, but when they 
saw the immense white waves break on the 
rocky shore and then looked at their little 
frail bark canoe, both of them lost heart. 

As Ray looked at the sad face of Bruce 
he felt like crying, but he swallowed hard 
and only said: “ I guess we can’t make it, 
Bruce. She is too big, just like an ocean. 
If we only had some boards and tools so 
we could build a big boat. I know, Bruce, 
that you could sail her.” 

“ Yes, brother, I could sail her,” Bruce 
replied sadly, “ but we have only an ax, no 
nails, no auger; I don’t see how we could 
build a boat.” 

That night the boys went to bed early 
to sleep off their grief, but Ganawa visited 
with the Indians and sat long at the camp¬ 
fire talking to them and letting them talk to 
him. 

“ My sons,” he had told the boys, “ In¬ 
dians are not like white men, who say a few 


242 


THE GOLD ROCK 


words quickly. Indians need much time to 
talk. If you try to hurry them, they will 
tell you nothing.” 

The old-time Indians were very super¬ 
stitious, and each tribe and clan observed a 
kind of taboo on certain places. A lake 
where some one had drowned, a place where 
somebody had been killed or had met a 
serious and strange accident, was likely to 
be avoided for years or even for generations. 

In his talk with the Ininiwac people, 
Ganawa had learned that a small island 
near shore about three miles east of their 
camp was one of those tabooed places. 
Years ago an Indian in a canoe who had 
been caught in a sudden squall had tried 
to take refuge on this islet, but a wave had 
thrown his canoe on shore and dashed him 
against a sharp rock, injuring him so severely 
that he died a few hours after the accident. 
Since then no Indian had set foot on the 
island and they had not even taken away the 
canoe of the dead man. 

“ My sons, would you be afraid to go to 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 243 


this island with me? ” Ganawa asked the 
boys. The lads assured him they would not 
be afraid, but they wondered what might be 
on the island to attract their guide, but Gan¬ 
awa only smiled and said, “ Come with me 
and see! ” 

The island itself is a beautiful spot, 
covered with trees and shrubs and the com¬ 
mon northern flowers and small plants. It 
lies only a few rods from shore, and the 
three explorers found hidden under some 
bushes of this islet something which they 
wanted much more than a boat-load of gold 
rock. They found a staunch twenty-foot 
wooden boat on this uninhabited island. 

“ Father, how did you know it was here? 
Who left it? ” Ray asked as soon as he 
saw it. 

“ The Ininiwac people told me about it, 
and it was left here by some white miners 
who dug for gold rock on shore. They 
found no gold rock and they went back to 
the white man’s country.” 

Bruce was busy examining the boat. If 


244 


THE GOLD ROCK 


it was seaworthy or could be made so, there 
was a solution to the problem of reaching 
Michipicoten Island and the Island of Yel¬ 
low Sands, the latter a small island in the 
middle of Lake Superior. 

The boat did not look hopeless. It was 
dried out and showed a nmnber of big 
cracks, but it was all sound. As Bruce 
looked around for oars, he discovered some¬ 
thing which made his heart give a leap. 
There was a box with some three dozen 
nails, a hammer and a cold-chisel, and an old 
linsey-woolsey coat. “ I can fix that boat! 
I can fix it! ” Bruce exclaimed when he 
made this find; for Bruce had built and 
sailed boats on Lake Champlain. He 
caulked the cracks in the boat with strips 
of linsey-woolsey. He hewed a keel out of 
a young pine, and nailed it to the bottom of 
the boat. “ She will sail safely now,” he 
said. He made other needed repairs and 
then hewed out two pairs of oars, so the 
islet looked like a pirate’s shipyard. 

Michipicoten Island lies only ten miles 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


245 


from the north shore of Lake Superior, hut 
the distance from the mouth of the river is 
fully thirty-five miles in a southwesterly 
direction. The island, as seen from the 
deck of steamers, stands out boldly as a 
wooded mountain rising between eight hun¬ 
dred and a thousand feet above the level of 
the lake. Its north side drops steep into 
the lake without a single cove or bay to 
shelter even a rowboat. 

Sailors fear a shelterless coast much more 
than they fear storms and waves of the open 
sea. Although Ganawa was afraid to sail 
over the open lake for thirty-five miles, 
Bruce persuaded him that with the wind in 
their favor, it would be much safer to sail 
directly for Quebec Harbor on the south 
side of the island rather than creep along 
the harborless north shore, then approach the 
island on the wind and wave-swept north 
side and then paddle or sail around to the 
harbor on the south side. On such a trip, 
Bruce convinced Ganawa, they would surely 
have to travel against the wind or even in 


246 


THE GOLD ROCK 


the trough of the waves part of the time. 
“ Look, Father,” Bruce closed his argu¬ 
ment, drawing a figure in the sand, “ we 
should have to go something like this: 



Let us sail straight with the wind.” 

Bruce had put a mast in the boat and 
made a sail out of a blanket; and when he 
showed Ganawa how quickly he could 
unfurl and reef his sail, the old hunter was 
convinced. 

“ My son,” he said, “ a good Indian can 
paddle a canoe on a mad river and a good 
white man can sail a boat over the mad waves 
of the sea and the Big Lake. My sons, we 
shall sail straight to the island over the open 
lake.” 



CHAPTER XXXI 


SAILING THE "" PIRATE " 

A FEW days later with a gentle easterly 
breeze Ganawa and his white sons sailed for 
Michipicoten Island with their bark canoe 
in tow. Bruce handled the sail, Ray steered, 
and Ganawa used his paddle. 

Ganawa’s heart nearly failed him when 
he found how strongly the wind blew after 
they had cleared the sheltered bay. The 
sky was almost cloudless, and a few white 
gulls lazily accompanied the travellers as if 
they were curious about the strange craft 
that had appeared on their own blue sea. 
As Ray watched them gracefully sailing 
around the boat, he wondered very much 
how they could sail up and down, back and 
forth without any apparent motion of their 
wings. 

The faster the boat sailed, the harder 

Ganawa paddled, for he knew only too well 

247 


248 


THE GOLD ROCK 


how quickly a breeze on Lake Superior may 
change to a dangerous gale. In fact when 
the sailors came abreast of the east end of 
the island, the spray began to fly over the 
stern, and Ganawa applied his short quick 
strokes faster than ever. The distance from 
the mouth of the river to Montreal Harbor 
is close to fifty miles, but the pirate boat 
sailed the course in about six hours. Bruce 
furled his sail and rowed the Pirate, as Ra}^ 
had named the boat, into Quebec Harbor 
soon after the sun had passed the noon line. 

All three of the sailors were in high spirits 
after their successful trip and, after enjoy¬ 
ing a hearty meal, and setting up their 
camp, they lost no time exploring the har¬ 
bor and a part of the island. They found 
no signs of caribou or moose on the island, 
but the snowshoe rabbits, now in their sum¬ 
mer pelage, were extremely abundant. 
When the travellers discovered a grove of 
good-sized sugar-maples, Ray regretted that 
they had not camped on the island in April 
or early in May, when the sap was running. 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


249 


for he was very fond of maple syrup and 
maple sugar. 

They spent two days exploring a number 
of small coves and bays on the south side 
of the island while the open lake was too 
rough for their boat. Bruce and Ray had 
great fun catching both lake and brook trout, 
and Tawny caught a big rabbit, but what 
they desired most they did not find. They 
discovered no message anywhere from Jack 
Dutton. There were plenty of signs that 
the miners of Alexander Henry and other 
white men had camped on the island at 
Montreal Harbor, but the ax-mark of Jack 
Dutton they could not find. 

Ganawa also looked carefully for signs of 
Indians and especially for signs of Hamo- 
geesik, but he found none. As far as the 
three explorers could tell, there were no 
other human beings on the island. 

However, the white lads, as well as Gan¬ 
awa, were by this time fully determined to 
reach the Island of Yellow Sands, which is 
now called Caribou Island. Ganawa had 


250 


THE GOLD ROCK 


never been there, but he knew that it lay 
six leagues straight south of Quebec Har¬ 
bor. On very clear days the island is visible 
from high points on Michipicoten, but there 
is nearly always a little haze over the water 
and the three sailors, on a day when there 
was a gentle breeze from the north, set out 
for an island which was not visible and 
which neither of them had ever seen. 

On this trip the wind did not increase, but 
after they had sailed a few miles, the sail 
dropped on the mast and the Pirate lay 
becalmed on the glassy swell of a lake that 
seemed the most peaceful of all waters in the 
world. Rowing a boat on Lake Superior 
out of sight of land gives one the feeling of 
being lost at sea. They rowed one hour, 
they rowed two hours, and now the thicken¬ 
ing haze made it impossible for them to see 
either Michipicoten in their rear or Caribou 
Island ahead of them. Bruce pulled the 
oars with all his strength, Ray paddled, and 
Ganawa used his paddle in the stern. 

“ Bruce, what are we going to do if a 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 251 

fog catches us? ” asked Ray, for he had 
noticed that the haze was getting thicker and 
the sun was not as bright as it had been in 
the morning. 

“ Better paddle, and stop asking foolish 
questions,” Bruce replied curtly. And Ray 
concluded that Bruce was worried as much 
as he was. It seemed to Ray that they had 
been rowing and paddling many hours, when 
at last a low black patch hove in sight di¬ 
rectly ahead of them. “Yellow Sands! 
Yellow Sands! ” Ray called out. “ Thank 
God, we are not lost! ” 

The Island of Yellow Sands, or Caribou 
Island, is a bit of ancient rock left in 
the middle of the eastern part of Lake 
Superior. It lies just north of the Inter¬ 
national boundary, and it is uninhabited and 
seldom visited even to this day. But there 
is a lighthouse built on an islet just south 
of Caribou, and on this islet the lighthouse- 
keeper lives during the season of navigation 
from May till November. While lying al¬ 
most in the path of steamboat lines between 


252 


THE GOLD ROCK 


Lake Superior ports and the “ Soo ” canals. 
Caribou Island still remains in its ancient 
solitude. Very rarely do any people or any 
boats except lighthouse-tenders visit the 
island. 

If one would feel strongly the beat of the 
great northward and southward surging 
waves of migrating birds, he could not do 
better than spend a season with the light¬ 
house-keeper of Caribou Island, and some 
day the island may become as famous in 
this respect as the island of Helgoland in 
the mouth of the Elbe. At the time of our 
story there were no lighthouses on the whole 
of Lake Superior. 

Caribou Island is about three miles long 
from north to south and about a mile wide 
from east to west. Its eastern shore runs 
almost straight, the western is more broken, 
but there is no natural harbor on the island. 

Ganawa and his boys steered for a hill, 
about a hundred feet high, in the south¬ 
eastern part of the island, and they rowed 
and paddled with all their might, for the 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 


253 


haze was gradually changing to the dreaded 
Lake Superior fog. For a little while the 
top of the hill remained visible, while the 
near-by shore was lost in the fog. By this 
time the sailors had turned the southeastern 
point of the island, and they could hear the 
white-throats and thrushes sing in the woods 
of the island, although for a few minutes 
they could see only the gray fog around 
them. But guided by the song of a white- 
throat, as by the whistle of an invisible pilot, 
they carefully used oars and paddle until 
the bow of the Pirate grounded on the 
reddish-yellow sand of the island. Then 
they laid down three short birch logs in front 
of the boat and using the logs as rollers, 
they pulled the heavy boat up on land, and 
secured their canoe, while each man silently 
offered a prayer of thanks to Him Who had 
delivered them from the night of the fog and 
the perils of the sea. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


CARIBOU ISLAND 

No place in the heart of North America 
could be more suited for a real game of 
Robinson Crusoe than Caribou Island; but 
books were scarce in most American homes 
of the Colonial period and neither Ray nor 
Bruce had ever heard of Crusoe and his 
island. Nor did they know that the famous 
trader Alexander Henry had visited this 
island only a few years ago, attracted by the 
strange name, for Henry had at that time 
caught the “ mining fever,” and he thought 
that the “ yellow sand ” of which the Indians 
spoke might be gold. Henry and his com¬ 
panions found the island well stocked with 
caribou and provided themselves with plenty 
of meat; and since Henrv’s time, the island 
became known as Caribou Island and as such 
it appears on all modern maps. 

The fog lasted all night and all next day, 

254 


THE GOLD ROCK 


255 


and the lads felt as if they and Ganawa 
were the only people on earth and that 
they had been cast away on an island in the 
sea. Even Ganawa, who was no stranger 
to solitude, confessed that he would be afraid 
without his white son that could make and 
sail a white man’s boat, and as the white 
boys sat and listened to the lapping of the 
waves, for Lake Superior like the ocean is 
never entirely quiet, and as they tried in 
vain to peer through the fog, the words of 
the Bible ran through their minds: “ And 
the earth was without form and void, and 
darkness was upon the face of the deep. 
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face 
of the waters.” 

The second morning broke clear and 
warm, and as the lake was quiet, the three 
sailors launched their canoe and started to 
paddle around the small island. The first 
thing that attracted their attention was the 
host of big rocks, as Ray called them, that 
they found scattered over the shallow water 
south of the island. If they had struck one 


256 


THE GOLD ROCK 


of them they might have been wrecked within 
a stone’s throw of the island. 

With eyes and ears keenly alert and with 
throbbing hearts, the lads peered toward 
the land for signs of human beings. Unless 
they found some sign of Jack Dutton on 
this island, they would have to give up the 
search. Once Bruce thought he saw a man 
slip out of the spruce timber, but it was an 
animal, a deer. No, it was a caribou, 
Ganawa told them. 

And then Ray spied something that made 
them all stop. “Look there! Look!” 
Ray cried, and pointed to the top of the 
hill. “ There is a rag tied to a pole. Some 
man must have been there.” 

They landed at once and climbed the hill. 
They found the signal. It was a piece of 
a butternut-dyed shirt. To the pole was 
also tied a piece of birch-bark with a mes¬ 
sage: 

“ Am stranded here. My partner is gone. 
I have no ax. Camp on east shore, near 
south point. J. D. April 26.” 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 257 

The lads cheered and danced around the 
pole and then all of them started for Jack 
Dutton’s camp. For the moment all their 
hardships and dangers were forgotten. 

They found his camp-site, but the camp 
had been moved, and they found no message. 
What did it mean? Had he been taken off 
by somebody? A man without an ax can¬ 
not build a raft or boat. If he is still on 
the island they ought to be able to find his 
camp-fire. Ganawa knew that there were 
several small shallow lakes in the interior, but 
a man who wishes to be taken off an island 
would not camp in the interior. He would 
set up his tent or tepee near shore and he 
would keep a fire going. So the three men 
paddled around the whole island and looked 
sharp for signs of a camp or a human being. 
From time to time they sang out Jack Dut¬ 
ton’s name, but no sign or sound greeted 
them in reply to their calls except the echo 
of their own voices. The mystery, which 
for a brief hour they had thought solved, had 
grown only "deeper and darker. Jack Dut- 


258 


THE GOLD ROCK 


ton must either have been taken off the 
island by some chance trader, or he was 
lying dead somewhere in a thicket or swamp 
of the island. It seemed not probable that 
he had been taken off, for so rarely was the 
solitary island visited by either Indians or 
white men that neither traders nor Indians 
knew that the island was stocked with cari¬ 
bou. Although the existence of the island 
was known to the Indians with whom Alex¬ 
ander Henry traded, their information was 
vague and none of them had ever been to 
the island. 

That evening Ganawa and his sons were 
more downcast than they had ever been on 
their whole long journey. Even the rare 
treat of sweet tea with their supper of 
broiled lake trout failed to revive their 
spirits. Each drank his share of the tea, 
but most of the fine broiled fish was left on 
the birch-bark platter. And after the meal 
was over, hardly a word was spoken, as each 
man sat and stared blankly into the fire. 
And this time, the spirit of the white lads 


/ 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 259 


had even drooped deeper than that of the 
old Indian hunter. 

“ My sons,” he said when he poured water 
on the camp-fire, “ to-morrow we shall hunt 
again for Jack Dutton. If he is alive we 
must find him, and if he is dead we must 
find him. If he is alive, maybe Ohnemoosh 
can find him, if we cross his tracks.” 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


THE LAST SEARCH 

In the morning the three friends started 
on foot to search the island. They made 
Dutton’s old camp their starting-point and 
from there went north on the east side of 
the island. There was no doubt about the 
place having been the lost man’s camp-site, 
but all the signs about the camp were old. 
The dog sniffed at some caribou bones, but 
showed no indications of scenting recent 
footprints. They had gone about a mile 
north, following a plain caribou trail, when 
Bruce raised his hand and stopped short. 

I smell fire,” he announced, turning back 

to his companions. “ Do you smell it, too, 

or is my imagination deceiving me? ” 

Ray and Ganawa could not smell it, but 

Tawny sniffed the air, and looked at Bruce 

as if he would say, “ You are right, I can 

smell it.” The young man increased his 

260 


THE GOLD ROCK 


261 


pace, and very soon he turned back a sec¬ 
ond time, his face flushed and his nostrils 
dilated. “ Can’t you smell it? ” he asked 
anxiously. “It is getting stronger. I am 
sure now that I am not mistaken.” 

Ganawa smelled it, too, in fact the pun¬ 
gent odor of burning peat was now quite 
plain. “ My sons,” he explained, “ I think 
it is a peat fire started by lightning.” 

But Bruce scarcely heard the old hunter’s 
explanation. “ Let us go on,” he spoke in 
a low voice. “ It may be Jack Dutton’s 
fire.” And he walked forward so briskly 
that his companions could hardly keep pace 
with him. 

In a little while he stopped again. “ Lis¬ 
ten, friends,” he asked with a trembling 
voice, “ do you hear a noise? A man work¬ 
ing in the timber? With an ax? Listen! 
Can’t you hear it? ” And Bruce walked 
ahead without waiting for an answer. The 
sound ceased, and he remembered that Jack 
Dutton had lost his ax. “ I must be dream¬ 
ing,” he thought. “ I certainly smelled a 


262 


THE GOLD ROCK 


peat fire but I must have heard a caribou 
break through the brush. Poor Jack is dead 
and gone! ” 

No, that was not a caribou. The sound 
came plainly now. Once, twice, half a 
dozen times. It was the sound of a man 
breaking or cutting branches with an ax or 
sledge or some other tool. Bruce forgot his 
companions. He rushed forward until he 
stood within sight of a small clearing. A 
man was swinging a stone sledge or ax 
breaking the branches off a number of 
spruce-trees. And there were small peat 
fires burning all around him. But the man 
swinging the stone ax was not Jack Dutton. 
He was some fearsome wild giant. He was 
naked, except for a caribou skin tied about 
his waist. His long dark hair was tied at 
the back of his neck, and his face was cov¬ 
ered with a heavy dark beard; and the color 
of his skin was almost as dark as that of 
Ganawa. 

Now the man raised up and drew his arm 
across his forehead to wipe oflf the perspira- 



He was some fearsome wild giant.—P age 2^2, 



*1 



OF THE CHIPPEWA 263 

tion and for the first time Bruce caught the 
deep blue color of the man’s eyes. And sud¬ 
denly the whole man changed in the eyes 
of Bruce. Gone was his tanned skin, his 
beard, and long hair. Bruce rushed up 
to him, crying: “ Merciful God! Jack Dut¬ 
ton! Is it you? Or is it a wild man? ” 

When Ganawa and Ray came running to 
the clearing, Bruce and the wild man were 
having a wrestling match, with Tawny sav¬ 
agely barking and dancing around them, 
ready to take sides in what looked to him 
like a real fight. 

And then Jack Dutton had to tell his 
story. “We hunted around so long,” he 
related, “ after the thieves who stole our best 
fur and our gold ore that we did not reach 
this island before the first part of Septem¬ 
ber. We had recovered the fur, but we 
never caught the thieves and our specimens 
of gold we did not recover. When we had 
explored this island and become convinced 
that the reddish sand wasn’t gold but just 
ordinary sand, the autumn storms set in and 


264 


THE GOLD ROCK 


we were afraid to risk crossing the open lake 
in our canoe; and as the island was well 
stocked with caribou, we decided to do some¬ 
thing which no man had ever done: We de¬ 
cided to winter on Caribou Island. It was 
lots of fun. We lived on the fat of the 
land. We not only had an abundance of 
caribou meat, fat and lean, just as we liked 
it; we also laid in a supply of smoked geese, 
ducks and swans. We caught the finest 
whitefish and lake trout. Early in fall we 
caught them with hook and line and after 
the lake froze over we speared them through 
the ice, Indian fashion. We also had a little 
flour and corn-meal and had a bushel of dried 
blueberries. We lived like kings and had 
more fun than a hundred Indians. 

“We had almost made up our minds to 
spend another year on the island, for I never 
heard from you, and thought you had given 
up coming to the Indian countr^^ Then 
about six weeks ago something happened. 
One morning I went up the island after a 
young caribou and my partner, Pierre Lan- 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 265 

deau, took out the canoe to catch a few trout 
among the big rocks south of the island. 
And that was the last I ever saw of Pierre 
Landeau and his canoe. 

“ The first night I spent alone in camp I 
didn’t worry much as I came home very late 
myself. I thought Pierre had just run in 
somewhere and lain down to sleep. We 
often did that, because black flies and mos¬ 
quitoes never bothered us on our island. 
Next day I circled the island in search of 
Pierre. I spent a week looking for him in 
every corner of the island. He might be 
somewhere with a broken leg. I was beside 
myself with grief, for Pierre and I had be¬ 
come close friends. When I regained my 
balance of mind, my clothes had been torn 
to shreds in my search through the brush 
and thickets, but I never saw a sign of him. 

“ Pierre was one of the best canoeists in 
the country, but he had the habit of ballast¬ 
ing his canoe with rocks when he went fish¬ 
ing alone. I had often asked him to use 
logs instead of rocks. I have thought it all 


I 


266 


THE GOLD ROCK 


out many times, and I think this is what 
happened: A squall filled his canoe, it sunk 
to the bottom, and Pierre drowned in the 
ice cold water. He had left our ax in the 
canoe. I was marooned on an island, which 
nobody ever visited. I had no canoe, and 
no ax to build even a raft. I had my gun 
and ammunition, but my only tool was a 
hunting-knife. 

‘‘For a few days I was in despair. I 
thought of building a raft of driftwood, but 
most of the material was too small. The 
large logs were still attached to the roots 
and I had no way of cutting and clearing 
the trunks. Then I braced up. ‘I am go¬ 
ing to get off,’ I said to myself. ‘ I will 
find a way.’ I had no ax, but I had fire; 
for each of us always carried flint, steel, 
and tinder. I found a place where lightning 
had started a fire and killed two or three 
dozen black spruces big enough for a raft. 
These dry logs were just what I needed. I 
built a fire around a tree near the ground, 
and when the tree fell, I burnt off the top. 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 267 


With rawhide I tied a handle to a sharp 
rock, and with my stone ax I knocked off 
any remaining branches. After I had 
worked on this plan a day, I was sure that 
I could build a raft. I planned to tie the 
logs together with watap, spruce roots. 
Rawhide stretches when it gets wet, but 
watap does not. I wanted dry logs be¬ 
cause they float much better than green ones, 
and they are not nearly so heavy. Remem¬ 
ber I could not use logs that were too heavy 
for one man to drag or carry. 

“ I figured that it might take me two days 
and a night to reach the mainland with a 
favorable and gentle west wind. I intended 
to hoist a sail, and I had planned to build 
a kind of bunk above the wash of the waves, 
so I might snatch a little rest and sleep, if 
necessary. I don’t know how my raft 
would have worked, but in about a week I 
should have been ready to start, if you had 
not found me. 

“ Now, friends, come along to my camp. 
We’ll make feast and celebrate.” 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


A BOLD VENTURE 

The feast lasted until the morning sun 
reddened the waters of Lake Superior and 
awoke the white-throats and thrushes of the 
island, for Ganawa and his sons had as 
much to tell to Jack Dutton as he had to 
tell to them. 

On Michipicoten Island, Jack Dutton and 
Pierre Landeau had stopped only two 
nights; but by this time Jack had so com¬ 
pletely given up the idea that he should ever 
see his friend Bruce on Lake Superior, that 
he and Pierre had struck out for Caribou 
Island without leaving any message or blaz¬ 
ing any trees near their camp. 

On the first quiet day the four rowed their 

boat among the big rocks in search of Pierre 

Landeau’s canoe. They found it on the 

bottom in fifteen feet of water, sunk by the 

rocks Pierre had used to balance the craft 

268 


THE GOLD ROCK 


269 


while he was fishing. If the canoe had not 
sunk, Pierre might have reached shore. 
But for the body of the drowned man they 
searched in vain; wind and waves had car¬ 
ried it into deep water. 

Jack Dutton put up a cross on the 
southern point of the island with the brief 
inscription; “ Pierre Landeau, Partner of 
Jack Dutton. 1776.’’ 

Bruce and Jack salvaged the sunken 
canoe. By means of a long pole with a 
hook at the end, they raised the craft on 
end. The stones rolled out and the canoe 
rose to the surface by its own buoyancy. 

Two canoes and a sailboat gave the 
campers more than enough room to take 
away all their furs and other things. So 
they remained an extra week for drying and 
smoking a canoe-load of caribou meat. 

There was some discussion as to the route 
they should take to the mainland. They 
rejected the plan of returning by way of 
Michipicoten Island, because that route 
would have landed them on a shelterless 


270 


THE GOLD ROCK 


coast nearly two hundred miles from the 
Soo. With a steady northwest breeze they 
struck out boldly for Whitefish Point, over 
a stretch of open water of some sixty miles. 
Every man was keenly alive to the risk they 
were taking. One man steered and man¬ 
aged the sail, while the other three used pad¬ 
dle and oars. The summer breeze blew 
steadily in their favor, and although the two 
canoes which they towed decreased their 
speed, the Pirate rounded Whitefish Point 
when the sun was still two hours high. 
They remained several days at this camp to 
fish and rest. Although the adventurers 
brought no gold rock with them, they sold 
their fur and dried meat at good prices to 
the traders at the Soo. 

The three white men decided not to 
return to New England, but to remain as 
traders in the Great Lakes country; and 
for years till the time of his death, Ganawa 
camped near the post of his white sons, who 
saw to it that his old age was made com¬ 
fortable. 


OF THE CHIPPEWA 271 

There was a strange story told by Indians 
and Frenchmen, which the lads at first could 
not understand. The Bostonnais had made 
war on the English and the king was send¬ 
ing over many redcoats to conquer them, 
but the Bostonnais under their chief, George 
Washington, had driven the English war 
canoes out of their harbor. 

It took some time before the three white 
men learned the real meaning of this story; 
but after some months they understood that 
the long-threatened Revolutionary War had 
broken out, that the battle of Lexington had 
been fought and that Washington had com¬ 
pelled the British to evacuate Boston. 

Of Hamogeesik no news ever reached the 
Soo. Bruce and Ray felt sure that he 
had been the man that had followed them on 
the Michipicoten. When Hamogeesik left 
the Ininiwac people a white man of bad 
reputation was with him. There was a 
rumor that the two had planned to go to 
Caribou Island. If they went, they never 
returned. In some way the great wilder- 


272 THE GOLD ROCK 

ness of lake and forest had swallowed them 
up, and there was nobody to mourn their 
death. 

During the trying years of the Revolu¬ 
tionary War, Jack Dutton and the Henley 
brothers did much to keep the Northwestern 
Indians from actively joining the British as 
the Iroquois had done under their great chief 
Joseph Brant. 

Many streams have been polluted and 
many lakes have disappeared since the days 
of Ganawa and his white sons, but the 
waters of Lake Superior are as clear as 
they were at that time, and the islands of 
the big lake and many parts of the shore are 
as wild and beautiful as they were more than 
a hundred years ago. 

May Gitche Gurnee, the Big Blue Sea 
Water, its wild islands and wooded shores 
remain for ever a playground and a land 
of joy and adventure for All America! 


THE END 




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